Jordan Allan		Declan Gallagher

YOUTH RESULTS
11th March 2013

Only the U15s game survived the weather at the weekend with a 4 o'clock kick off at Excelsior stadium against Livingston

Airdrie showed their intent when Jamie McKay brought out a great save from the Livi goalkeeper inside 20 seconds. It wasn't long however before Jordan Allan harrassed the Livi defence into a mistake to capitalise and put the Diamonds one up. Allan then doubled the lead with an unstoppable 30 yard drive. Livngston fought back well and matched Airdrie for the remainder of the half which saw no further scoring.

The 2nd half saw Airdrie go up a gear and Grant Brennan made it 3 before Declan Gallagher got on the scoresheet with two well taken goals. Jamie McKay then made it 6 before Jack Fulton made it 7 at the death.

Next week our U13s and 15s travel to Elgin whilst our U14s and U17s take on Livingston at Excelsior Stadium.

	Rhys Arthur		Lee Brown

YOUTH RESULTS
31st January 2013

A windswept weekend saw mixed fortunes again for our Youth teams.

On Friday night our U17s played Blantyre Boys Club in a friendly at Toryglen. Playing some good football they ran out comfortable 5-1 winners.

Sunday saw our U13s & 15s face Motherwell at Airdrie Leisure Centre on the 3g. Despite the high winds both games displayed some excellent football from the boys. Our 13s went a goal down in the 1st period but battled back well and on the stroke of the final whistle Rhys Arthur got the young Diamonds a deserved equaliser. The 15s did not share the same fate as their younger counterparts. Going 2 down inside the 1st 6 minutes left them with an uphill task. The rallied well and pulled 1 back through Luke Tuite before Motherwell scored again. Josh Payne made it 3-2 and again Motherwell scored to open up a 2 goal gap. Jordan Allan then pulled one back from the spot to leave the final score 4-3

Our U14s travelled to Kilmarnock and recorded a terrific 5-1 victory with goals from Lee Brown, Chris Jones, Jack McKnight, Robbie Davidson and Marcus Boyce.

YOUTH Squads
3rd September 2012

Following on from the clubs first year within Club Academy Scotland where we entered 2 teams at the U14s & U15s age group, the growth of Youth Academy has seen us double the teams entered with teams also at U13s & U17s.

It has long been the aim of the club to develop our own talent and with the Academy know seeing over 75 boys registered to the club we continue to grow from strength to strength.  The commitment to enter 4 teams with the Academy Scotland set-up has seen us increase the level of qualified coaches at the club to 14 which includes Specialist Coaches for Goalkeeping and Sports Science.

Jimmy Boyle is delighted at the expansion and has already offered three players within the Academy 2 year Youth Contracts.  He has always believed the club will prosper with a healthy progression of boys coming through the youth system and his support along with Alan Lawrence has been key to the expansion.

Assistant Head of Youth Liam Brindle who has been instrumental in the set-up of the Academy at the club has said without the ambition of Jimmy and Ann Marie Ballantyne then the Youth Academy would not have got off the ground let alone expanded. 

‘The work that goes into to ensuring the club meet the guidelines placed upon us by the regulatory body at Hampden is not done overnight.  The initial process to pull together all of the elements required took months to put in place and the expansion has seen further hard work to get the club to a standard whereby we meet the required criteria. 

'Jimmy has a great hands on approach to the football side whilst Ann Marie deals with the admin side of things.  More encouraging though is the personal interest taken by them both to get to know the players.  Their support has been terrific.’ 

He went on to say ‘The Academy received a tremendous boost last season when two boys were invited into the Scotland Squads training camp and this has helped raised the profile of the club which in turn has benefited  in attracting talent.’

With the youth teams also training at Excelsior Stadium before the 1st team and the Under 19s it has seen 1st team players like Cammy MacDonald, Jamie Bain, Nathan Blockley, Fraser Keast and Andy Duncan become involved in training and small sided games which is a tremendous boost to the boys.

The club also has a steady stream of talent within the boys club ages of U5-U12 who through time will hopefully progress into the Academy structure.

With the expansion also comes an increased cost. Opportunities currently exist to sponsor the teams and if you would interested in offering any form of sponsorship please contact the clubs Commercial Manager John Drysdale on 07962 023683
Look out for a profile of each age group being added to the website in the coming weeks.