Youth football made a welcome return this spring with the completion of the 2021 Orkney Youth Development Leagues. It was great to see everyone outside enjoying themselves following a difficult year without much football. A total of 10 teams participated in the under-11 age group league, the BW Kemp Cup, which was won by Stromness United who narrowly edged out Hotspurs Whites and East A. The winners of the under-13 Graham Budge Memorial Cup were Hotspurs Stripes who completed their six games with a 100% record with Dounby, East and Stromness finishing joint second. Finally, the Merriman Shield for under-15s was won by Stromness, again the league was very competitive, with Rovers and East staying in contention until the last round of games.

OYDG would like to thank the Kemp and Budge families and Brian Muir at RS Merriman for their continued support of these competitions. The organisation of these games has been a little more complicated this year due to the restrictions due to COViD-19 and we greatly appreciate the extra efforts made by all the club volunteers and facility managers to make sure we could safely run these competitions this year.

In other news, we would like to thank everyone who donated items for our recent week at the Blue Door, and to the staff and volunteers at the shop. A total of £2000 was raised to support all our youth football activities in Orkney.