Friday 3rd May saw AFC Sudbury U14s Squad travel to the East Midlands tour. 32 players plus 6 coaches headed north for a weekend of football. Using their Youth Hostel base, the squad embarked on a weekend of football and bonding.

West Bromwich Albion hosted the boys on Saturday with an Academy led training session in their 3G dome before heading across the road to watch their first team secure a play-off place with a 3-0 win against Preston. The lads would have enjoyed the amazing full house atmosphere had they not been glued to their phones looking out for the Ipswich Town score!

Sunday saw the boys almost literally roll out of bed to face our first local opponents just 500m from our location, Marlborough Rovers. We played mixed teams against them securing a well fought 3-3 draw in the first game and an unlucky 1-4 defeat in the second. It was wonderful to see the squads mixing with ease, taking on unfamiliar roles and playing some fantastic football with unfamiliar team mates. The boys stuck around to enthusiastically support each other, which reflects how close the group have remained throughout the years.

Sunday afternoon we took a trip to the city - Nottingham. We mentally challenged the players as we sent them into escape rooms to continue their team building. 8 rooms - 6 teams escaped in under the hour mark. Afterwards, we took a short walk around time to meet Robin Hood, visit the oldest pub in the country (not for a drink though) and pay homage to one of the games legends - Brian Clough.

Monday morning we played games as separate Blues and Yellows Teams. The Blues filled with confidence after some strong performances the previous day took on Ashby Ivanhoe. They started slow but built confidence and grew into the game before claiming a solid 4-1 victory. The Yellows played Heather FC on the next pitch. A lethargic warm up raised concerns amongst the coaches but the players quickly took their stride playing some of their best football of the season to race to a 5-0 half time lead and a 8-0 final score.

A real pleasure of the trip was watching how the players thrived in each others company and genuinely developed some great friendships. The evenings were filled with mischief and banter as we got to see different sides of their personalities. We also received compliments everywhere we went about how well the players represented AFC Sudbury which is a credit to themselves and the AFC Sudbury community.

It was a great opportunity to build a connection with fellow grassroots clubs in another region. We were fortunate to find friendly hosts who made huge efforts to make these fixtures happen despite weather affected elongated seasons. A huge thanks to Dale Ball @Marlborough Rovers and Johnny @Ashby Ivanhoe and Steve Witho @HeatherFC.

We'd like to thank the fundraising committee, sponsors - Sudbury Print, Cotherm and Named4you - for helping to make this trip happen. And finally, a massive thanks to the coaching team for their enthusiasm, dedication, patience and sense of humour on Tour and sharing some wonderful memories with some great young people.