Holbrook Swan Reserves football team news

Holbrook Swan FC are an established football team with players from both the peninsula and wider communities, they finished in third place in the top division of the Ipswich Sunday League last season.

This amazing result highlighted how great being part of a team can be and inspired huge interest in my under 18's squad of Holbrook Hornets.

We approached The Holbrook Swan FC, enquired if it could be possible to introduce a Holbrook Swan Reserve team into the 2021 / 2022 season which would incorporate the under 18's team as well as other lads from around the peninsula. It was agreed we could.

We were made very welcome by the 1st team and took on many roles within the club. We launched ourselves into training on Reade Field throughout the warm summer evenings as our first league game of the new season approached.

Not only was this going to be a massive step up for the boys, entering men's football, this was going to be a huge step for me as a manager, having to adapt to coach and work with men for this first time after 14 years of youth football.

The day came and we entered our first league game of adult football in high spirits and with little expectation of what adult football was going to bring us.

After a great battle from the lads we got the season rolling with a difficult 2-1 victory over a hard Panthers FC team. Tired yet jubilant we agreed to head over to The Swan Pub to grab a couple of pints and celebrate our astounding victory.

In the welcoming arms of Adam & Jo, we soon realised that The Swan will be forever our home.

The season progressed and the results could not be much better, we soon saw ourselves running away with the league and through our unity, togetherness and friendship managed to bring each game back to a win.

Besides the fact that we make great teammates on the pitch, we started building strong bonds with the Holbrook community off the pitch and could not resist getting involved with the local quiz night.

This led to the team agreeing that the footballing facilities of the village could benefit from improvement and any monies made from local events we participated in or organised were to be put towards developing a new Pavilion on Reade Field.

Recently we raised £120 from a raffle organised in the pub on a Sunday evening, £60 from our own quiz night (also held in the pub) and with a few other donations from the team and pub regulars we now have £215.45 in the New Pavilion Fund and are looking to raise much more in this coming season.

My reserve team's desire to make The Holbrook Swan F.C. an established club for generations to come is honestly breath-taking and I could not be prouder of their commitment to their football and the community.

Our passion and dedication to strive for victory has led us to winning the league (and getting promotion) with two games left to play, a fantastic achievement for my hard working team and we celebrated with one too many pints in The Swan, singing "Sweet Caroline" a few too many times!

As a team, we will certainly be looking to recruit players for next season.

Please do come and watch us on Sunday mornings and help us improve the facilities on Reade Field by coming to the fundraisers we organise.

Mark Cornock