After our first team eventually finished a competitive eleventh in the National League this season, which is the best placed league finish in our entire 69 year history, we are as a club still looking to improve.
Our BW PASE Academy has had another incredible, record breaking, season that saw us produce another trophy laden haul. We also produced three England College internationals, while we sold our Academy captain Ben Goodliffe to Wolverhampton Wanderers. As you can imagine, we are very happy with the boys and feel that our quiet but continued progress on and off the field is now unquestionable.
The last month has also shown every one of us that our hard working Academy structure, partnered wonderfully by a loyal Barnet and Southgate College, is a force both locally across London and in truth across the whole of England and Wales.
Examples of this are evident everywhere when just three weeks ago we excelled again as we became the National College Champions of England and Wales. This was an achievement we feel the boys, our amazing college and our football club can rightly celebrate.
However, the last 28 days has seen our elite Academy boys and staff go to another level and overcome a gruelling 14 game schedule that saw them continue to succeed as they won a more than deserved National League regional league title. They then experienced the low that only football can give, after cruelly losing a National Cup final on penalties after leading 3-1 with just 3 minutes left.
So for our Academy to come back from that to secure two incredible National titles, with the type of schedule that was thrown at us this season is outstanding. It shows the type of character and resilience our small football club prides itself on and in truth what it demands of its staff and its players. It perhaps shows our players and staff that to remain with us and to succeed, you must have the right attitude, discipline and desire in abundance.
Our last game of this gruelling Academy season finally came on Wednesday this week when we overcame injuries and absences, incredible mental and physical tiredness, to become the National League’s ‘Champions of Champions’ for the first time after defeating a very good Maidstone United Academy 4-2.
It showed everything that is good about our young Wood Academy, as they trailed 1-0 and then 2-1 in the final before a gutsy “come from behind victory” was achieved by Cameron Mawer and his young charges. That never say die attitude perhaps summed up everything that is special about our staff’s work ethic and our Academy system.
However, football never does stand still and we understand more than most, that we will have to evolve again to stay in the National League next season. With Wednesday’s cup final barely over, we finally completed our full season management review and its with great delight that Boreham Wood Football Club can announce our new look senior backroom staff for both our First Team and our Academy for season 2017/18;
