I'd like to start by saying well done to a few of our players from last season.

Firstly, to the three boys from last year's squad who gained professional contracts - Joe Day, Lewis Hilliard and Jack Higgins all worked extremely hard towards the end of the season to impress Justin and the opportunities they all now have are thoroughly well deserved.

Well done to Aaron King on his move to Liverpool following a successful trial.The strength of character shown to go straight into that level of football and impress in such a short time is typical of Aaron and will help him, I'm sure, as his career moves forward.He is also a level headed lad who, I know, is thankful to everyone at this club who have helped his development over the past few years and he is sure to stay in touch with us.

Finally, praise to Aynsley McDonald for his continued involvement with the Welsh International Squad.At the time of writing, he is away with the team in Denmark and played for the whole of the first match of their tour - helping them to a 2 - 0 win over Iceland.

So, to this season and an overview of the changes that we have made to how the Youth Team will work going forward.

For financial reasons, we have had to remove the team from the Puma Junior Alliance League. In essence, the loss of the £180k funding which every one of the other 15 teams in the league receive to operate their youth systems has finally caught up with us and we simply could not afford to make the payments to players required to remain on the education programme and being on that programme is a requirement for participation in the league.

We have worked with the Education Provider and the PFA to ensure that the current second year boys are able to complete the scholarships they signed up for but have had to look at other ways of educating the new 1^st years and the boys who will join us in the coming seasons.

For those new first years, we are entering into an agreement with the Manor School Sports College at Raunds for them to provide the necessary education for the boys and we feel that we can now offer them better options than the previous scheme - they could leave with the equivalent of 4 A Levels as opposed to 2 and have much better University and Job options should they not be successful in gaining a pro contract.

This link with a local college also allows us to enter the squad into the Football Conference Youth League which is an Under 19 competition played on Wednesday afternoons.While it is not expected that this league is of as high a standard as the Puma Junior Alliance, our aim is to play a predominantly 1^st Year (I.e. Under 17) team in these games as this will prove a good test for the boys against a bigger, older opposition as they make their first move towards playing in senior football in less than two years time.

For the FA Youth Cup, Midland Youth Cup and the Conference League Cup we will play our strongest sides and this is where the 2^nd year scholars will get the majority of their game time in the first part of the season.If they perform well, they could be involved in senior friendly matches and the Hillier Cup Squads too.

At a much earlier stage in the season than previously, we would be looking to put the 2^nd Year boys out on "work experience" in an appropriate level of senior football.As I've said before, the experience that Joe, Lewis and Jack got last season at Brackley, Hemel Hempstead and Billericay was absolutely pivotal in their development and was the major factor in them being in a position to be offered a deal for this season.

So, while it may appear a backward step in leaving the Puma Alliance League, I do not feel that it is.The flexibility this season's plans give me in terms of a players' football development is certainly better than previously and the education package is also superior.

All in all, I remain excited about the season ahead as we work our way through pre season and towards the first set of competitive matches in early September.

I am particularly looking forward to the friendly against Chelsea on July 31^st and the "Legends" game two days later and hope that we can get a good turnout for each of these fixtures to help raise funds for the running of the Youth System which continues to flourish despite a total lack of help from the Football Authorities.Thanks to Shoey for setting up the first of these games and Gareth Haynes for all of his work with the Legends match.

Paul