Hello everyone. A year or two ago I decided to start a career with a small English club. I gave it up after nearly one season was done, because i didn't have time to do this. Now I will start it again. By the way, that club is called Redditch Utd. Has any of you ever heard about it? You are free to rise your hands and let me see them. Uh, oh, I see... There aren't too many of you. Still, I want to post here my career and everything connected with it. Ready to go? Here is the start...

My name is Rafael de Hooijskens, I'm already 49 years old and I'm Dutch. What can I say about myself? You may have not heard of me, but I spent several years playing in the Dutch and Belgian leagues. Yeah, I'm serious. I even played for Ajax (only reserves, but the name of the club sounds really proud)! I decided to give up playing football at the age of 36. My plan was simple - stay connected with my favorite sport as long as I would be able to. Training of youngest players was my job for last 13 years, but after being successful with my team called 'Blue Canaries' (by the way, stupid name, isn't it?) I got an offer from that small English team. I have never heard of it before, so that a little bit exotic challenge drawn my attention immediately. This may be my only chance to become a real team's manager and to fight in semi-professional and, hopefully, professional leagues. How long was I thinking about the offer? Short enough. Next day after I have recieved the offer was, as I called it, 'the day, that a small man travels to the world of big football'. I was quite wrong, you know...

Redditch United is a club playing in Blue Square North. When I have arrived there the squad's state was, not to say too much, BAD. How bad? Well, we were one of the favorites to be relegated this season. I decided to start my work as quick as it was possible. First things first, I had a look at the ruins of the training equipment. Desperate not to have nightmares after seeing it, I started looking for 2 or 3 specialists to take care of players' training. It was not easy, but short negotiations were enough to convince them that we aim to build a strong team.

Then a quick glance on the Free Agents' list. I have signed four of them: Lee York (young, promising striker), Sam Woods (became a key player shortly, central defender), Philip Green (just as talented as Sam, left winger) and Neil Simpson (occupying right wing and looking good). After signing a deal with Aston Villa (pretty good parental club, eh?) I have loaned another two promising youngsters - Lee Boyle (Goalkeeper) and Sam Williams (38 goals in 33 matches so far - a real bulldozer and my black pearl). What's more, two months later Maurice Ligeon, an experienced defensive midfielder has joined the squad for free from Huizen. By that time i made 5k by selling two players, who were not in my plans for this season...

In february an injury plague thwarted my plans of being first in the league (don't ask me, I was surprised as well), so another two players strengthened my squad (for free of course): Hernani (Portuguese attacking midfielder) and David Gillies (24 years old promising striker). Now the date is 5th March 2008. What is my list of achievments like? Just take a look:


Lying in the 5th place in the league, Redditch Utd must face a challenge of winning most of the upcoming matches to stay in the top 5, which guarantees a chance to advance to the Blue Square Premier. How will we cope with it? Follow this career and we will show you what is the meaning of the name: Redditch United. We never give up!


In my next notes I'll try to show you my team a bit closer and got you right into the middle of football action!