Boss Paul Jewell says he’s looking at ways of improving Town’s reserve football. Successive Blues managers have been unhappy with life in the Totesport.com Football Combination East Division, which this season includes only seven teams.

Jewell, who has previously said the games against second strings from the likes of Luton, Stevenage, Southend and Oxford don’t give his developing youngsters enough of a test, is considering making changes to the current arrangements: “It’s something I’m looking at because in the reserve league the games come when you don’t need them and then when you want players to have a game there are no reserve games for a month so you end up organising [a friendly].

“We’re looking at it. Nothing’s been set in stone yet, but we’re looking at the reserve situation and seeing if we can improve it to our benefit.”

One of Jewell’s previous clubs withdrew from their reserves league and played only friendlies but Jewell says the geographical situation isn’t quite the same at Town: “We only played friendlies at Derby and a lot of teams do that now. At Derby there are so many teams on their doorstep, but it’s a bit different here.”

The Blues manager says he missed most of Tuesday’s 2-1 reserves victory over Norwich, who withdrew from the league last summer, because he had to leave for his scouting trip to Pride Park: “I only saw half an hour because I had to go to Derby!”

Chris Kiwomya’s reserves side currently top the Totesport.com Football Combination East Division on goal difference from Oxford United.

Photo: Action Images

ITFCFW added 10:39 - Mar 5 Something does need to be done, standard of competition is very poor, assume this is why the club dos'nt bother to update the fixture/result list, last three results are still not on there and it dos'nt show the last home game (Watford) has been re-arranged for 29th March.
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devontractorboy added 11:10 - Mar 5 About time, been saying this for ages. Sort it out Paul :-)
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adamisablue added 12:32 - Mar 5 another reason england do nothing on the world stage, lack of competion in the lower and back up leagues. to say "every team must have a reseve team and play in the league" is obivously a ridculous statement, casue not every team in pro football can do this, but 7 teams in the whole of england!?!?!? ok reseve team football is never going to attract the people like first team, but there should definatly be a proper league and cup. think pj should enlist other managers and get onto the f.a to step in

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StochesStotasBlewe added 13:04 - Mar 5 Whatever happened to the old format for reserve team football. My 1st visit to Portman Rd was in the mid 1960,s for a reserve fixture, entrance was free i believe, i was instantly hooked & the following season became a regular at the age of 6 or 7 for all the 1st team home matches with my dad, who incidently was often a linesman for football combination matches. Often, attendances were of quite a few thousand when the bigger teams came to town as the reserves would be at home on a saturday when the 1st team were away. How has that old format been allowed to dwindle to little more than half a dozen very average teams. Surely a regionalised league involving more clubs would be a benefit to not only the clubs, with more competative 2nd string teams, but also to local fans who maybe can,t afford high 1st team match prices. Food for thought perhaps.

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Mark added 15:34 - Mar 5 It is a poor situation, and not helpful for keeping footballers fit and developing them. Regional reserve leages should be easy enough to set up and I'd have thought we could compete with some London clubs as they are not that far away.
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CanadianBlue added 19:20 - Mar 5 Shame we can't throw the Reserves straight into a Regional League (ala Spanish leagues). I'm sure Bury and Lowesoft would enjoy playing our youth...
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EatonBlue added 22:55 - Mar 5 Could we enter a reserve team in the Dutch League?
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WREXHAM_BLUE added 11:57 - Mar 6 Well done PJ; this is is great news. Something needs to be looked at nationally with regard to reserve team fotball as the current state of play is nothing short of shambolic.
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bournemouthblue added 19:34 - Mar 6 Get them playing Dutch sides Paul!
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TractorRoyNo1 added 23:52 - Mar 6 offer to play the midlands teams at their place, only 2 /3 hours up the a14; it would be better than playing the likes of stevenage reserves, if not do a deal with Kettering or Rusden and play our 'home' games against midlands teams there
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