Lions Ben signed by Wolves - Oct 08

Lions player Ben Priest was signed by Wolverhampton Wanderers this week. Ben has been a member of the Under 13's Lions side managed by Ian Beddows for the past two and half years, more recently as team captain.
Ian's team has won the double three years running.

With the help of the Lions set up and Ian's coaching his game has improved during this period resulting in him being scouted by Wolves and eventually signed after a six week trial.
Unfortunately Ben has had to give up his place in the Lions team, he has already played 5 games for Wolves under 12s as a trialist and has been training with them 2 nights a week, which will now increase to 3 nights with games on Sunday mornings to come against Aston Villa, West Brom and Birmingham City to name just a few !

Ben would like to thank everyone at Lions for all there help over the years he has played for them, especially his team mates, who he will miss greatly although they will not get rid of him that easily as he intends to watch as many games as possible.

He also thanks Ian Beddows for his coaching and motivation and giving him the opportunity to captain such a fantastic set of players.

Ben is pictured below with his man of the match trophy and winners medal from the under 11s Stourbridge league Cup final in May 08 and on his debut for Wolves against Shrewsbury Town In August, which they went on to win 5-2.

Let there be light !!
Spet 06

Mark Davies – Electrician – Father of Mason from Under 8’s
Martin Dudley – Electrician - Father of Luke from Under 8’s
Wayne Preece – Mini Digger Operator – Father of Ben from Under 8 Cubs
Darren Richards – Builder – Father of Tyler from Under 11’s
Nigel Pritchard – Referee between Electricians and Builders – Father of Nick & Matty from Under 11’s & 8’s.

All four columns were concreted in position by Saturday evening and work continued to go smoothly on Sunday until the last digger scoop of the job went through an underground water pipe. Wayne quickly managed to turn off the fountain pending repair by a plumber.

Following final electrical testing the lights were turned on at 9 o’clock on Sunday evening. Initially there were sighs of disappointment at the strength of illumination. What we did not realise was that the lights take a few minutes to warm up. Once fully lit it was time for sunglasses and a quick game of footy between the dads, before a well earned pint or two in the club.
In addition to the installation team who worked really hard throughout the week-end massive thanks also go out to :-
Tim Beadsworth (father of Tim from Under 9’s) who owns Express Tool Hire in Lisle Avenue. Tim supplied free of charge the Mini Digger and Scaffolding Tower both of which were invaluable. Mark Pearsal (father of Sam from Under 11 Cubs) who arranged for the design drawings to be generated.
Jim Tyler (Club Secretary and grandfather of Joe Donkin from Under 11’s) who patiently waited at the Cricket Ground for 3 days for the lighting columns to be delivered.
Hire-It for supplying free of charge the hole boring machine (Daz and Nige are still recovering from trying to hold it).
R. F. Amies for supplying free of charge copious amounts of sand, gravel and cement (Note for Daz – don’t take up quantity surveying as an occupation).
Brian Capewell for turning out on a Sunday afternoon to repair the broken water pipe.
Dave Page from Malvern Electrical Wholesale who advised on, and supplied the lighting at a discount price after being subjected to hours of grief from Nige.

Hopefully the lights will now provide a top class winter training facility for lion’s teams for many years to come. Thanks to everyone involved.

PS. Just a cautionary note – Could all managers and coaches please ensure that the planning limitation of lights only to be operated on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings and turned off by 8:30pm latest is strictly observed.






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Schools Link 2005
As part of Kidderminster Lions commitment to grass roots football, in conjunction with the FA schools link programme, and as part of our involvement with FA Charter Standard Schools, the club held a series of three, weekly, football training sessions for ten players, years 1 and 2, from four local schools with a festival finals day in week four.

The sessions and subsequent tournament was held at the Lions home ground at Chester Road. Each school was allocated two FA qualified coaches who remained with the team right through to finals day when a mini leaugue competition was held.

Each player received a medal and certificate and in addition the winners and runners-up of the tournament both received trophies for their schools.

The Tournament Day started well for Comberton and Spennells First School's who both won their first matches against Offmore and St Johns First Schools respectively. The second round of matches saw wins for Spennells v Comberton and a first win for St John's v Offmore. The Final round of matches saw an emphatic victory for St. John's v Comberton and Spennells completing a 100% record with a win against Offmore.

The Tournament was won by Spennells First School with St. Johns First School as runners-up.

Kidderminster Lions would like to thank all coaches, referees, players, schools and parents for their commitment to the schools link festival. All the players appeared to enjoy the coaching they received and it is hoped they will continue to develop their football skills in the future.



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