It has been an honour being the CPD Llanllyfni FC manager for the last 12 months. I am Llanllyfni born and bred and a former player of the club. Though the task was quite daunting, given that the club had finished bottom of the league the previous season, I did not hesitate in accepting the managerial position as I strongly believed that we could turn the club’s fortunes around.
The first thing I did was approach Chris Parry who agreed to be the Assistant Player Manager. Chris is an excellent and very experienced player having played for the likes of Chester City, Caernarfon Town and Porthmadog. He is a natural leader on the pitch and has used the same skills to lead the players off the pitch. He’s also a very good friend.
Together, we built a new team for the 2014-15 season which included a mixture of new and old faces, young and experienced players. It was very pleasing to see how well all of the players blended and the commitment shown by all of them in training as well as in competitive matches.
We trained the squad hard and this was evident at the end of the season when we beat all of our main competitors for the league. Winning the Gwynedd league was a very proud moment and as well as winning the league, we also reached the final of the Meditel Cup and the semi final of the Bob Owen Memorial Cup.
All of this makes me extremely optimistic about the 2015-16 season. We have signed many exciting young players with plenty of potential and we can boast the quickest two wingers in the league as well as the invaluable experience of others. However, performing well in the Welsh Alliance league will be a tough task and we have tried to prepare ourselves for the challenge by bringing in Chris Jones to strengthen the management, Kim Warrington and Lynda Roddick-Evans as Club Secretary and Chair respectively to strengthen the management committee and by the signing of a young goalie who has replaced Kevin Sheret after 10 years of serving the club.
I am eagerly looking forward to the 2015-16 season, my second season as manager of the club and dream of emulating the success of last season.