Friendlies and Other U-19 Team Matches

 FA PREMIER YOUTH ACADEMY LEAGUE

  
The FA Premier Youth Academy Under-19s League set-up last season had four regional groups of 10 teams each:

  Group A (NW)     Group B (NE)   Group C (SE)    Group D (SW)
  Blackburn Rvrs   Barnsley       Aston Villa     Bristol City  
  Bolton Wndrs     Derby County   Arsenal         Chelsea  
  Crewe Alexandra  Huddersfield T Birmingham C    Crystal Pal
  Everton          Leeds United   Charlton Ath    Fulham   
  Liverpool        Leicester C    Coventry City   QPR         
  Manchester Utd   Middlesbrough  Ipswich Town    Reading
  Manchester City  Newcastle Utd  Millwall        Southampton
  Stoke City       Notts Forest   Norwich         Tottenham H
  Wolverhampton W  Sheffield Wed  Peterborough    West Ham Utd
  Wrexham          Sunderland     Watford         Wimbledon   

The season started with some inter-group matches against teams from the farthest (geographically) regional groups.  For Everton, that meant a game with a team in Groups C, and D.  Everton then played three teams from the closest Group A.

For the main part of the season, Everton played each of the other teams in the local Group A, both home and away.  They finished up playing each of the remaining teams in Group B just once, giving 28 matches in all.  By finishing top of their regional Group table, Everton progressed direct to the semi-final of the national playoffs, where they lost to Nottingham Forest.
  

 GROUP TABLE, 2001-02

Click here for an U-19 League Table
  

 YOUTH ACADEMY U-19 MATCH DETAILS

 Bristol City 1 - 0 Everton

Everton:  Team.
Subs not used: Names.  Scorers: Scorers.

Sorry, no report available

 YOUTH ACADEMY U-19s – APPEARANCES

 Burscough 0 - 6 Everton

Everton:  Pettinger (62' Cole), Colbeck, Crowder, Schumacher, A Moogan, B Moogan  (60' Thorbinson), Brown (76' B.Moogan), Beck,  Symes, Rooney, Carney.
Subs not used: Cole.  Scorers: Symes (11', 13', 54', 83' 90'), Rooney (47')

On a beautiful summer's evening, a good crowd turned out to see our youth team overpower Burscough's youth team tonight and the Man of the Match award going to the player wearing the Everton Number 9 shirt, Michael Symes, who must love coming to Burscough.  Tonight, he put 5 past their keeper.  In fact, without Burscough's keeper being in fine form, the score line would have been in double figures.

It took just 11 minutes for the Blues to open the scoring.  Everton's corner was not cleared and the ball fell to young Symes, with his back to goal, who spun and  made it 1-0 with his left foot.

Two minutes later, Symes was again on the score sheet; this time, the ball put through from midfield, with Burscough looking for the offside.  Symes latched on to the ball and, from 12 yds out, put the ball into the bottom right-hand corner of the goal. 

Half time: Burscough 0 - 2 Everton

Rooney, whose name has been whispered around the Academy as the next Wonderkid, found the back of the net on 47 minutes.  From the right hand side, he ran at the defence and saw his shot glide past the keeper from the corner of the box. 3-0

Symes had several chances for his hat-trick and it finally came on 54 minutes when he profited from a Burscough defensive error and calmly side-footed the ball past a helpless keeper. 

By this time, the stadium announcer, just said, "on 83 mins, you know the goal scorer" for Symes, from a corner, when he rose above the Burscough defence to powerfully head home, his fourth of the night. 

Right on 90 mins, much to the crowd's delight – well the blue half anyway! – Symes made it 6-0 after Schumacher had hit the bar.  Symes using his prowess, as a centre forward, to knock in our final goal of the evening.