With the warmer temperatures still a couple of months away, preparations for the London Gryphons 8th season of W-League competition are already well underway. With an early start to recruiting and securing some major title sponsors, this upcoming season is showing the type of promise the inaugural campaign of 2005 did. That year, Gryphons narrowly missed a playoff spot by a single point on the last day of the regular season.

After a two year hiatus from the Manager’s position, Aaron Lauterbach will be resuming the key leadership role for the club this season. “The past two years, my primary focus was on youth player development within our Academy system. With the hiring of Marcel Naarden (Technical Director) in 2011, that has significantly freed up my time to concentrate all my efforts on making the 2012 W-League Gryphons a winner.” said Lauterbach Building a roster of players that will not only be competitive but win against the likes of perennial powerhouses like Ottawa, Toronto and Laval will be a daunting challenge. Lauterbach continued by saying, “Stepping back into this leadership role has me committed to giving my very best to the club and putting the most exciting Gryphons team ever on the field for 2012!”

Already getting a jump start to the 2012 season, the Gryphons acquired the services of elite technical trainer Jose “Garrincha” Figueiredo. “Garrincha will bring an entirely new dimension of training to our team in 2012 and I am confident that will translate into some high performance soccer on the field” said Lauterbach. The focus of the Gryphons recruiting the next couple of months will be to identify players who can establish the creative possession soccer that Garrincha will instill into the team through his technical style of training. To complement this technical training will be an intense physical regime that will have the Gryphons amongst the fittest teams in the entire W-League! In closing Lauterbach stated “London soccer fans can expect a very exciting 2012 season from the Gryphons. We are already off to a flying start and I am eager to share more news in the coming days and weeks!”