RHYL RESERVES TEAM FOLDED
RHYL FC have reportedly decided to fold their reserve side which has operated in the Welsh Alliance League since 1984/85.
Manager Jon Stazicker contacted me tonight to inform me the reserves team will no longer run and will be replaced by a Rhyl Under-19 youth team in 2009/10.
Stazicker himself has been offered the job as manager of Conwy United and has accepted.
Many thanks to Jon for all his invaluable support over the past two years and very best of luck for the future.
Rhyl Reserves won the Welsh Alliance League title under Dave Fuller in 2003/04 and lifted the Barritt Cup two seasons ago. They were also beaten finalists in the Barritt this season.
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Good luck to John at Conwy,he did a great job at Rhyl.I think the club have made a big mistake ditching the reserves but I understand the reasons behind the decision.
Means no progression possible from the Youth/Reserves structure to the first team. Youth set-up presumably just there to satisfy UEFA with no chance of playing at a level which will bring players on towards first-team standards.
2004, the boast was of a community club from roots up with Reserves, 3rds and junior teams all winning their leagues and a tradition - right up to Brewi and Matty Holt - of players coming thro to the first team. Danger is that we now just buy in a first team squad. If finance disappears, the whole thing folds. It means that local lads can't realise an ambition to identify in playing terms with the club. One would also have thought that it didn't make too much financial sense. If there were loads of first-team injuries/suspensions, you could fill the bench from the reserves. Are there going to now be squad players just hanging around ? I thought that was what we were trying to reduce.
Historically - look at the 50s/60s - when Rhyl was doing well as a club, the Reserves also did well. It's important in its own right but also a litmus test.
I was a player playing for the reserves and cannot believe the team has folded, as a local lad I looked forward to playin on belle vue n wearing a rhyl shirt on saturdays(knowing I wasn't going to progress to first team) it was the closet thing for a local lad to be in and now with prestatyn looking elsewhere and rhyl are looking at a youth team where are the 20year old+ lads going to play? And where are injured first team players going to get match fit? The reserves have reached so many cup finals and league titals and have also finished in the top 4 and has been a foot hold for so many lads who have progressed to higher level of football,e.g sharpy, holt, an a lot of prestatyn town players!how are the local lads around the area going to improve and compete at a higher level besides clwyd league standards?? Which to be honest(I have played in for rhuddlan town fc in before rhyl reserves) is like a Sunday league(no offence) there are no hope of playing higher league teams playing in a league such as that. Hopefully the reserves will be carried on because all the lads there loved being part of rhyl fc and if it wasn't for Stazi we wouldn't of been able to. Hope it can be all sorted out and thanx to all who helped with the reserves and let us play there..
As schoolkids in the 60s, we would look in the local paper at the Welsh League North and the Cheshire League tables. Maybe not surprisingly, we tended to talk a bit more about being 2nd from the top in the former rather than close to the bottom in the latter. The point is that both were referred to as "Rhyl" not "Rhyl Res" as if it were a separate club. David Evans was held up as the example of a player who had come up from school, through the Reserves to the first team and it was a possibility open to all of us. The tradition weakened but went all the way down to Lee Congerton of the 90s to Brewi in recent years. It should not be lost or do not be surprised if many fans just turn out for big matches and feel little loyalty at other times.
I just think it's a shame..