Photo credit: Jamie Edwards Photography
Welsh Speaking Photographer based in Llanelli South Wales covering Sports, Weddings Events and more.
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Hakin United Under 16s are West Wales Cup Champions, League Champions and they still have the Pembrokeshire Cup Final to play. A treble would be an outstanding achievement and the very best way to bow out of age group football.
Coach Anthony Mayhew has coached the team since under 7s and is still coaching the team now in their so far unbeaten season, as the old saying goes hard work pays off. We caught up with Anthony following their recent success.
Thanks for your time Anthony, and congratulations are in order. Tell us a bit about when the team started out?
We started out with 5 mini players age 5 years of age playing in the under 7s mini fixtures. Coached by Myself and Tom Wheeler, all 5 of those players still being with us for our U16s season 11 years on. 4 of these initial players started the West Wales Final:
Henry Mayhew
Tommy Powles
Tyler Williams
Issac Mills
Unfortunately our Captain, Reggie Armstrong being the fifth player to join at U7's ruptured his ACL back in January so has missed out since then but still very much a part of the team always attending games and being present at training.
The following season Tom Wheeler moved on to under 8s with the older boys and myself and Nigel Armstrong had to recruit a few more players and were also joined by Ben Williams and Jon Fawcett to assist with coaching. The majority of our team joined this year.
Over the years we had to add a couple of players as team sizes got larger ending up with a squad of 20 players which resulted in us splitting them into two teams but still making sure they all got to play with each other on different weeks.
What are you most proud of in all these years of coaching?
We as coaches are really proud that the majority of players we started out with at under 7s/8s were there in the squad for our west wales cup win 11 years later which is a great achievement and to me really demonstrates what grassroots and junior sections is all about.
The West Wales cup was always a competition we wanted to win and to do it in our final year is pretty special and something which will be a lasting memory for the boys. We are so lucky to have a great bunch of lads and the total support and backing of parents since day one.
This has definitely been our best season Winning the league and West Wales cup and are unbeaten in all competitions so far with the Pembs Cup final this Friday 10th May against Monkton Swifts.
Coaching Team
Anthony Mayhew
Nigel Armstrong
Ben Williams
Jonathan Fawcett
West Wales Winning Squad
Alfie Thomas (G)
Thomas Davidson
Isaac Mills
Lewis Llewellin
Tyler Williams
Henry Mayhew
Dylan McGuire (C)
Tommy Powles
Ethan Dawes
Corey Riley
Rowan Dixon
Ollie Mayhew
Sammy Wilson
Charlie Davies
Cruz Findlay
Jamie Siteo
Liam Hughes
Honours
Under 15 league winners
Under 16 league winners
Under 16 west wales winners
Under 16s cup final Friday 10th May.
Previous years runners up in leagues and Cups.
Plus a couple of mini tournament wins .
Photo Gallery (click to view in full)
