I thought it appropriate in my first year as Chairman to set out to the members of Surrey Youth League my thoughts for the coming season and explain some of the reasoning behind some of the changes you will have started to see.

The summer is a very busy period for the League Officers – Registration, League Handbook, League Formats and Fixture Production. We are though very well placed to commence on time with everything up and running.

One change you will have to explain a little further, many of the Committee and the vast majority of teams and clubs were uncomfortable with having two Premier Elites in any age group, coupled with having in many age groups a Premier North and South, the promotion and relegation issues between these leagues had become very unclear and very unwieldy and largely talent and objective assessment of skills diluted.

To lessen the controversy, the league format Committee including myself and Frank Thompson have moved the leagues into one Premier Elite and a Premier League in all U11 to U15 age groups, along with regionalisation below these leagues in to a combination of Div 1 & Div 2. Other age groups are not completely in that structure yet, due to size, mini football etc – but are on the way and will be completed next season 2009/2010.

We have had very positive comments about the change thus far, in addition you will see published in the handbooks the promotion and relegation that will take place for the majority of the leagues. This we hope will remove any uncertainty that teams complained about over recent seasons.

A further development you should all be aware of is the “Respect Campaign” being rolled out by the FA. This we hope will assist in the reduction of discipline matters that we all get very tired off. I was really surprised to see a statistic the other day on TV that put Surrey at the top of the league table of games being abandoned due to misconduct. Lets all work together to ensure that the SYL is not a contributor to this growing statistic.

The league has a number of voluntary officers who work very hard to ensure that this is the best run Youth Football League, most certainly in Surrey, and hopefully much wider. As members of the league please work with our volunteers to programme the matches to best effect, respond to correspondence efficiently and ensure a cordial atmosphere is maintained at all times. Please ensure that you are aware of the rules relating to requesting matches off, reporting results of matches including cup matches and dealing with postponed matches efficiently.

To close I hope to get out and about, refereeing from time to time, and will hopefully see a number of you around.

Football is an emotional game we all have our highs and lows, lets not get too down about a loss or a decision against, but lets enjoy and encourage all that’s good about the wonderful football we see week in week out, lets remember it’s children’s sport.

Good luck for the season

Graham Ekins

Chairman Surrey Youth League