Promotion for Henley Forest with plans to grow

HENLEY Forest of Arden are on the way up and there are big plans for the Stratford Road side.

Boss Jake James guided his side to second place and promotion from Division Four of the Birmingham & District league with a game to spare and a Sunday side is now in the pipeline while the junior set-up is flourishing.

James said: “At the start I did a video of my thoughts for the season, what I wanted to get out of it. Looking back at it now I think I've ticked all the boxes on that front.

“I said I wanted us to be competitive, I wanted us to have fun and I wanted us to have that nice squad morale around the team and for people to grow friendships through it. While a lot of people knew each other, there were a lot of new faces.

“After the first few training sessions, I thought we've got a good squad here. Promotion wasn't my end goal at all but as the games continued, it was quite apparent that we could do well and the results showed that.”

While the Henley Forest of Arden club has been in existence for many years, there has been no men’s football team since Covid.

James added: “The manager of the old men's team who was also chairman of the club stepped down. I had been coaching for six or seven years with my friend Bobby and we took our team from u10s to u16s. At that point we decided to grow it into a men's team.

“I felt I had run my course with kids football as we had gone two years unbeaten. I was ready for that next step in my managerial career and it was nice because it was primarily trying to get the u16s to play football more.

“I was also aware that Henley didn't have a men's team so it was good to be able to bring that back. Somewhere the size of Henley should have a men's football side.”

He added that awareness of the team is growing due to its social media posts and he explained what the future had in store.

“We have a men’s Sunday team for next season and two junior sides so we are growing,” James said. “I can't wait for the Sunday side to start because some of the younger ones that play on a Saturday don't necessarily get 90 minutes each week so they will be able to top up their minutes on a Sunday which will be great.

“I don't want to lose the core reason why I started the team which was to try and get people to play out of Henley.

“Our chairman, Damien Perry, came in at the right time for the club. He's a parent of one of the u15 players and he just gets stuff done. Ultimately, that's what you need for a club to grow. He's been brilliant for us.”