Presidential Award 2004

Neil Paterson 

At the AGM Of the Scottish Youth FA at Hampden Park, President Angus McConnell presented Neil Paterson with the Scottish Youth FA Presidential Award of his services to youth football.

Neil has been involved in youth football for well over thirty years. His involvement started with King Street Sports Club for whom he played for in the Granite City League. He was persuaded to help coach the club’s Hazelwood League team by Alex Beaton.  Following this he ran various age group teams for the club, the most successful of which was King Street Belmont winners ofthe Scottish Juvenile Under 16 Cup in 1985. That team contained the likes of Andy Smith who went on to play for Clyde, Dunfermline and Airdrie for whom he scored a goal for in the Scottish Cup Final against Rangers. Another famous King Street old boy that played for Neil was Dons captain Russell Anderson.

But the honour was not made purely for his efforts on behalf of King Street, as Neil in his time has been Organising Secretary and Chairman of the Grampian Union of Boys Clubs. He was President of the Aberdeen Youth Service FA before that association merged to form the Aberdeen and District Juvenile FA. Neil was elected as a life member of the association in 1992 and is currently a serving member of the Executive Committee. In his capacity as Public Relations Officer for the Juveniles Neil has compiled and published for the last eight years a quarterly newsletter called the Juvenile News. Neil has also submitted regular reports to the Evening Express about the weekend juvenile matches.

Such has been his dedication to Juvenile football in the Aberdeen area Neil even stepped in as Acting Secretary for a couple of years when the league secretary Raymond Kelly was away working for the Wood Group in America for a prolonged period of time.

On Raymond’s return Neil took up the vacant post of Scottish Youth FA Northern Regional Secretary and in that capacity has set up and maintained a Regional Website so that clubs can gain information on Scottish Cup draws and get links to coaching websites. For the last three years Neil has also prepared and edited the programmes for the Scottish Youth FA Cup Finals.

Together with Neil Simpson of Aberdeen FC, Neil was instrumental in organising In Service Coaching Seminars for Youth Coaches and organising and indoor Futsal Festival.

SYFA President Angus McConnell was delighted to recognise the efforts of Neil Paterson “ Without the hard work and dedication of people like Neil Paterson thousands of young boys would not experience the joy of playing football. Volunteers are the life blood of our organisation and it is nice to be able to make such an award.”