On Sunday 30th March, FC Juniors held a tenpin bowling afternoon. 35 juniors took part, ranging in age from 3 to 16. Teams were made up from juniors of mixed ages, and an FC player completed each team of 6. "The Team With No Name" featuring Rory Patterson, Megan, Lauryn, Joseph, Lucy & Owen were the overall winners. They each received a trophy to commemorate their win. Players were also asked to nominate a junior in each team as the "Players player" of the afternoon. The players all said it was very difficult to choose just one junior as every one of them had been stars. However,as they could only choose one, Rory decided on 7 year old Joseph, Margy chose 9 year old Julien, Simon Carden chose Olivia aged 10, while 5 year old Alex was Bradley's choice, and Robbo decided on 9 year old Cal. Joe Marginson and Alex Weatherilt, who stepped in when a couple of the players couldn't make today, chose 11 year old Chantal & 3 year old Liam respectively. Juniors with high scores also received a trophy. In the 7 years and under category the winner was Lucy with a score of 108. Cameron won the 8 to 12 year old category with 123, while Cam's older brother Jamie won the 13 to 16 year old category with a 134 score. All juniors that were not in the winning team received an engraved medal as a memento of the day.

Here are the juniors showing off their trophies at the end of the afternoon.

For the last two Saturday home games, there has been a trial run of a new Pre Match Club experience, Angels With Dirty Faces. What is it? Well, it's not like the Social Club and it's not like Course You Can Malcolm, and it's definitely not for adults!

What it is, is this. Starting at 12:00 and running until 14:30, FCUM Junior Members have exclusive use of a lounge upstairs in the Main Stand.

So far, we've managed to get hold of a PS2, an electronic dartboard, a bar football table, board games, cards, and something to play your choons on. Feel free to bring along your PS2 games and your choons. If there is anything else that you think would be a good idea, then let us know and we'll see what we can do.

Entrance is free and there is a selection of drinks and snacks on sale, with all proceeds going to the Junior Members target in support of the Development Fund. Junior Members will need to show their Membership Cards (and give a contact number for a Parent/Guardian) to gain entry via the Players Entrance next to the Megastall.

Due to organisational restrictions, it is only possible to admit Junior Members aged 10 and over, although Junior Members aged 8 and over will also be admitted, if either they or their parents/guardians are volunteering on that particular match day.

It will also be possible to become a Junior Member on the day by completing the Membership Form and paying the Membership Fee of £3.

Unfortunately, due to capacity limits, there will only be a maximum of 30 Members admitted at any one time, so pack your parents/guardians off to the Social Club and CYCM and get there early to avoid disappointment.

We're going to run this as a trial until the end of the Season to see how things work, and if there's enough interest we'll be looking to carry it on next Season. We hope to have a couple of surprise guest appearances as well so keep your eyes peeled for familiar faces!

Angels With Dirty Faces! See you there!

PS If you don't like the name, then think of another and we might change it! Your Club, Your Rules. Send me your ideas & I'll put a poll for you to vote for your favourite name

PPS If there are any more adults who would like to become Junior Member Volunteers then please get in touch. The more Volunteers we have, the easier it is to get things happening.
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We would like to thank every junior that helped to make today such a brilliant success

Danny Selvidge raised £122 towards the juniors Development Fund total with his "Beat the Keeper." Lots of fun with that one, and an event we may well see again.

Katie, Steph, Anne-Marie, Cora and Aimee did the fantastic face painting. There was a £50 donation to the DF from an FC fan when the faces of a couple of the "adult" fans were painted. Nice one girls. Also to the adults that helped our juniors with the face painting; Scott, Lisa, Claire, Sarah.

Megan, Louise, Matthew, Nathan  and Martin for ran the "Play Your Cards Right" stall and gave out general information. The stall made £7.50 profit today. The prices charged were only £1 for adults and 50p for juniors, and there were a few winners, both adults and juniors. Adults had double their money back as a prize and juniors won £1 worth of goods off the junior stall. So, all in all, a succesful day.

As you can see above, the juniors are now at 30% of their DF target, which is brilliant.

It's fantastic to know that when asked, we can rely on our juniors to get involved and help this club of ours to be the success that we all want it to be.

We have to say the biggest thank you of all, however, to Vinny Thompson, the guy who organised today. Vinny has worked tirelessly for weeks making sure that today ran as well as it did. Free smoothies, food, goody bags etc for you juniors; these things don't just happen. It takes someone as dedicated to FCUM as Vinny to make them happen. And today, he did just that. Well done Vinny, and well done everyone else that offered their help today.

Here is the FC bug. Get yours from the junior stall. Available in red, white and black

This is Maddie and Martin, 2 fantastic members of FCUM Juniors. Maddie is a member of the Macclesfield FC Supporters branch, and together with four of her fellow juniors at Macclesfield, collected their spare 20 pence pieces. They collected £62 for the FCUM Development Fund. That's a lot of 20 pence pieces. Ten year old Martin swam a mile recently to also raise money for the development fund. He raised over £400. The target we set the juniors to raise this season was £3,000. We will probably not make that amount, but with juniors like those pictured on this page making such big efforts we will have a good try.  The club needs it's own ground as quickly as possible, and it is down to all of us to help make that happen. You could follow the lead of juniors that have already started doing something towards it by thinking of your own fund raising event. Don't forget that at the end of the season, the junior that raises the most money on an individual basis, will win a fantastic prize.