New chair’s vision for Maccabi juniors

MARC LEVY is looking to take junior Jewish football to a new level having been appointed Chairman of the Maccabi GB Junior Football League.

Levy, who’s been involved with the league for more than a decade – serving as vice-chairman for the past several years – said: “I’m very excited to be appointed chairman.

“I have a strong understanding of what the league is about and its importance to our community. Although the current format has

proved very successful for many years, we intend to work closely with our partners, including Maccabi GB, the Elms and our clubs and managers, to review how we can plan and build on the fantastic support and structure that we already have.”

Commenting on the standard of Jewish football and how it sits alongside the likes of the Watford Friendly and EXCEL Leagues, Levy said: “We are the country’s only Jewish junior football league and we offer something

very different to the WFL and Excel. We have a lot of respect for them but also strongly believe in the product and model that we offer.”

The Maccabi Junior League attracts more than 500 Jewish kids each week, and Levy said: “Junior football is noncompetitive at the age groups we offer but we obviously want to introduce as much variety as possible and run as many cup competitions as we can. The standard of our league is pretty good – we use top-quality pitches and provide

referees for almost all of the fixtures.” Taking over from Laurence Thorne, who held the position for more than 15 years, Levy added: “We’re really grateful to him for his commitment, effort and stewardship of the league for such a long time and he entirely deserves his honorary life presidency. We’re pleased that he’ll still be around to support us and that we can call on him for guidance, ensuring that we do not lose his years of knowledge and expertise.”