The 2015/16 season for the AFC Rushden & Diamonds Under-18 sides starts this week. The first game will be the FA Youth Cup game at Cogenhoe United on Thursday evening – preview here, with two further games in the following seven days.
For the 2015/16 Season AFC Rushden and Diamonds have formed an additional U18 squad to play Saturday mornings in the Midland Junior Premier League. This team will allow those players graduating from the lower age groups in the Diamonds Academy and Community setups to progress their football if they are not following the existing academic-based route with the Diamonds / MAA partnership. This league is known as the “The Help Harry Help Others Midland Junior Premier League”, and the U18 Division is sponsored by MDH Teamwear. You can find their fixtures and results on their website here, and there is also a dedicated area for the MJPL on the FA Fulltime website here. They will play their home games at Rushden Academy, and are managed by Samson Nzanga.
Additionally, the Diamonds / MAA partnership team has joined the Football Conference Youth Alliance where they will play in Division C under the management of Darren Purse, You can see FCYA fixtures, results and league table here. They will play their home games at the Dog & Duck on Wednesday afternoons (2pm KO).
The first few games for the two U18 sides are listed below. In some cases the opposing team may have more than one U18 side, but to avoid errors no specific team has been inferred below:
Thursday 10th September FA Youth Cup – Cogenhoe United (A)
Saturday 12th September – Stratford Town (A) MJPL 10:30
Wednesday 16th September – Peterborough United (H) FCYA 14:00 (Dog & Duck)
Saturday 19th September – Coleshill Town (H) MJPL 10:30 (Rushden Academy)
Wednesday 23rd September – Romford Reds (A) FCYA 14:00
Saturday 26th September – Saffron Dynamo (H) MJPL 10:30 (Rushden Academy)
Wednesday 30th September – Lowestoft Town (H) FCYA 14:00 (Dog & Duck)
The overall club structure is illustrated in the following diagram, which is also available in PDF format with clickable links to the various league / fixture lists – Whole_Club_Football_Structure1516 v4
