Hello to everyone reading. I thought I'd be writing a monthly blog but with all the stuff going on in the club it's more like a week-and-a-halfly! So, here's the latest...

Halloween

Seeing as its Halloween on Thursday we'd like to encourage as many players (and coaches!) to come to training in costume as possible. Obviously there are restrictions to what you can move in but costumes can be worn to training and team photos done before removing for the football.

 

Stockholm FA visit to Scotland

Around 20 members of the Stockholm FA will be visiting Glasgow in the next fortnight and as part of this they wish to see how we run our Soccer Centre at Giffnock! The group of Swedish coaches will visit the Soccer Centre, which runs between 9-12 on Saturday at Mearns Castle (Newton Mearns), and look at how our club involves as many players as we do.

Coaches In-service

Our first Giffnock SC Coach In-service will take place on the 22nd of November and will be titled 'Tricks of the Trade'; aimed at giving the coaches at P1-4 some of the wee tips that make a session run smoother and maximise time spent coaching. I will be looking for Soccer Centre boys to participate as runners for this Friday night. Details to be confirmed.

Connor Daniels Level 1.3 Coaching in the Game

Connor Daniels (17) is a midfielder with the 1996 Thistle team and has been combining his st with coaching voluntarily with East Renfrewshire Football Development over the past 18 months. Connor will complete his Scottish FA Level 1.3 Coaching in the Game certificate this Sunday- making him one of the highest qualified coaches in the club- so I'd like to invite you all to join me in saying 'Congratulations' to Connor!

Connor will now be working as one of the lead coaches at the Girls U7 session at The Pitches (Pollokshaws) which is on every Sunday 11-12.

1996 captains

Ever wonder what's so great about playing for Giffnock SC? Well, James Lea (17, Mearns Castle High, left) and Paul McKerns (17, formerly of St Ninian's High, right) are the captains of the 1996 Thistle and Saltire teams respectively and also a coach at the club. The lads answer that question and some others in the first of our Giffnock SC Player Files which will be available on the club website.

 

Tournament #giffnockscfestival14

The Giffnock SC International Football Festival will be running for its third year this May, 24/25s from further afield- currently we have Danes, English, Irish and Scots attending. 

The official hashtag of the festival will be #GIFFNOCKSCFESTIVAL14 and I'd encourage you to use it in all social media messages/tweets/chats that you have so that we raise the profile of our great Festival.

Also, if you know of/have contact with any foreign sides please get in touch with me (george.milliken@hotmail.com) and I will pass this on to our tournament organising committee.

SecuriGroup will once again be our principal sponsor of the event.

Please do leave comments, your feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Good afternoon and welcome to the latest edition of my Football Development blog for Giffnock SC- the biggest and best club in Scotland officially!

WELL, work has begun on our new 3G pitch at St Ninian's High School in Giffnock. This will be the home of the club from January and we hope to have as many of our 4s, 7s and younger 11s teams on here playing as much as possible. This pitch has been funded in part by Giffnock SC, East Renfrewshire Council and SportsScotland. Alongside our new home will be our changing facilities and clubhouse, funded in part by grants and assistance from the Scottish Football Partnership- this facility will be one of, if not , the first of its kind built in the country for growing clubs like ours. Massive thank you to all involved in getting these projects off the ground.

SO, with our little ones sorted- what about the big ones? Our refurbishment of the Norwood Pavilion is well underway with the kitchen and changing rooms just about complete- we are no able to offer visitors hot and cold food and drinks. These grass parks will shortly go under renovation work which will leave us with 3 top of the range grass parks by 2015. Norwood will then become the home of our older 11s teams, right through to our super Amateur team who are currently top of the West of Scotland League- well done lads!

www.facebook.com/GiffnockAmateurs

ALSO, I have been working closely with the Club Committee on putting plans in place about how we better develop all young players at the club- this involves coaching plans and coach development nights throughout the year. 14 of our 1996 boys (under19s) recently completed their Scottish FA Level 1 congratulations boys!

FINALLY, for this update-on top of all this coach recruitment and development I have been working with Bernie, Brendan and Pauline of the Girls section of the club about how we grow this area of the game.
We are hoping to get involved in local secondary schools to offer FREE girls-only football coaching by myself, a Scottish FA Licence holder, for all S1/2 girls at Mearns Castle, Williamwood, St Ninians and Woodfarm. On top of this I hope to get around primary schools in the Clarkston, Newton Mearns and Giffnock areas, offering the same program. So look out for flyers/newsletters in your daughter's school bag in the next few weeks!

Hello and welcome to my second post. Having finished my post-grad in Education I am now back to focussing on my role at Giffnock SC and hoping to get around loads of training sessions over the next fortnight- catching up with old faces and hoping to meet some more of the new ones.
This weekend saw the club participate in the Great Scottish Run again and special mention to 'kit-man' Alan Dobson, who does way more than make us look good, for once again organising and promoting our massive participation- over 200 runners on Saturday for the junior runs. The players who ran have raised loads for the Teenage Cancer Trust and I look forward to updating with an idea of the amount raised for this great charity.

Remember to follow us on twitter @giffnock_sc and like us on Facebook.

Thanks for reading.