Plug the U-18 gap

VALE REC are tabling a resolution at tonight's Guernsey Football Association's annual meeting to bring back Youth One.

The GFA dropped the under-18 league last year as part of their controversial four-year plan.

In place of it, they brought in an under-21 development league.

Tonight's AGM is at St Margaret's Lodge Hotel.

'We're concerned with the gap that's there,' said Vale Rec secretary Lester Forman (pictured).

'Once players reach 16 they can go into the under-21s or they play senior football, if they are good enough, but a lot of them are finding the gap to the U-21s too big.

'The fear we've got is that we're losing kids at that age after bringing them up through minis and juniors because there's now nothing for them.'

In Rec's plan, the competition would be called the GFA Under-18 Development League and would be for 15 to 18-year-olds.

Every club would play each other three times.

There would be no rolling substitutes and a team could use three replacements.