Harpole Under 15's
DALEPAK is proud to provide a strong link with youth football in the Northampton vicinity and this year’s Harpole Under 15 side’s prospects of striking a ‘treble chance’ in 2008/09 are strong proof of this. The side, who are managed by Vince Fairlamb, and who were formerly known as Abington Athletic, have been together since their Under 9 days before going through their first league season unbeaten.
Last term, Harpole clinched a notable league and cup double as under 14s, losing only once in their league campaign to ON Chenecks and winning their divisional league cup 5-4 on penalties against Gregory Celtic at Northampton Town’s Sixfields Stadium in May after a 1-1 draw.
Harpole’s young warriors also reached the semi-finals of the NFA County Cup where they were beaten 1-0 by Corby Hellenic Fisher. Key players during the campaign were skipper Ryan Moss, goalkeeper and player of the year Bobby Warwick as well as Sam Omomogbe and Femi Solesi.
Manager Fairlamb, who also does some local scouting work with Northampton Town’s Head Of Youth Geoff Harrop, said: “It is our aim to go one better this season. As well as winning the league and league cup again it would be great to win the NTFA Cup competition.
“We have signed some new players including my own son Luke Fairlamb who was on the Cobblers books, Lee Melottie from Rushden and a Daventry lad named Adam Creany. The real plan is for these lads to maximise potential and play as high a level as possible.”
Harpole club secretary Chris Winters explained the link to Dalepak, saying: “Dalepak’s managing director Mick White was kind enough to sponsor the side I ran which went right through from Under 7s to Under 16s. His grandson Dale played for us at one point but even though he is now a very good golfer and didn’t continue the football, Mick has been kind enough to continue backing us nonetheless.
“This means that by supporting last year’s Harpole Under 14 side we are now in our 11th year with Dalepak.”
He added: “As you can imagine with a local village football club there are always expenses to be met but anything that is left over goes towards the senior third team on a Saturday.
“We were keen to establish a link between the junior teams who play in the John Henry League in Northampton and the seniors, which is why we adopted the Abington Athletic side last year. We didn’t have a team playing at that age group at the time and the Abington team were keen to move away from park pitches in the town and enjoy the benefits of a village base.
“Now we very much have one eye on the future. Although you expect some lads to move away with college and university or perhaps to drift away from football when they are 18, we hope perhaps five or six of the current youth team will stay with the club when it is time to graduate to the adult leagues.”
