I know I have already mentioned this to some people over the weekend, but I wanted everyone to know that I have recently confirmed that one of San Jose Earthquake's coaches, Jason Batty, will join the '98 portion of the Gunners Club starting November! I am very excited about this as Jason brings to the table a wealth of knowledge, experience and youth training experience. Jason as well as Ian Russell (also an EQ coach) has been working with our '96 Gunners and Jason is very excited to dive into our '98 program as well. For those of you who are not familiar with Jason, he's born in New Zealand and has played professionally for 14 years in England, Singapore, New Zealand and the United States. He has played 55 times for the New Zealand National team and currently has his National "A" youth license - that's as high as you can get in the US. There are many more accolades with Jason, but one more in particular is that he also is a goalkeeper specialist and trains the EQ goalkeepers, including their current standout, Joe Cannon.

He will start with our program next Monday, November 3rd and work with our boys on Mondays until the end of this season and then we'll iron out a schedule for him thereafter. As our teams will be going to 11 on the field starting next Spring, this is an opportune time to really start working on the tactical aspects of the game and Jason/Chad will be great at bringing this aspect of the game to our Club.

As you might have guessed, Bav will be wrapping up his services for our Club at the end of this week. Both Bav and I agree that he is too busy with his own soccer endeavors to be able to put in the time needed to see this Club develop as it should. However, Bav has really helped provide valuable training to our Club while he was here and, if you have time this week, please thank Bav for the time he has spent with all the teams within our club!

- Allen -