English Schools' Football Association

The selection process for this current season has now been completed. It has not been easy with our plans being seriously challenged by the vagaries of the weather but the professionalism of the staff and commitment of the players has enabled six weekend trial occasions to proceed through to fruition. The final weekend at Lilleshall, 7-9 January 2011, also saw a creditable performance against the RAF U25 development squad which ended in a 3-0 victory to the ESFA trialists. Unfortunately, due to logistical problems the Royal Navy were unable to reschedule their fixture which was cancelled on 5 December.

The trials this year were of a very high standard with the result that a number of very good players were unable to be included in the final 18. This is always a painful process which after the many years colleagues have been involved, never fails to pull at the heart strings. The final deliberations resulted in the following squad being selected:

In addition, Kai Hewitt (Norfolk) has been nominated as Goalkeeper reserve

The first gathering of the final squad will be at Lilleshall for the weekend of 28-30 January where the opposition for the weekend will be provided by Loughborough University. The final preparations for the international season will be completed with a training camp in Malaga, supported by Inspire Sport, where the opposition will be provided by the Academy of CF Malaga, one of Spain’s top youth teams.

It should also be noted that once again the staff at Lilleshall were generous in their praise for the appearance, behaviour and manners of the ESFA trialists this last weekend.

For International Fixtures go to www.esfa.co.uk/international