Tournament inspires young players

B8 Monday, April 20, 2015
THE PRESS, Christchurch
MAINLAND FOOTBALL
ADVERTISING FEATURE
Tournament inspires young players
M
ainland Football’s
junior and youth
players have just
kicked their season off
– and youngsters are about to go
football mad with the FIFA U-20
Men’s World Cup starting in fewer
than 45 days.
The world’s best under-20
football players are heading to
New Zealand, with countries such
as Germany and Brazil playing at
Christchurch Stadium.
This is the opportunity for
football to promote itself, and for
local players to be engaged with
the sport they love. Youth players
have been given the opportunity
by the Mainland federation to be
involved during match days by
being ball crew or flag bearers; an
opportunity that hopefully results
in continuous commitment from
lots of players aged 12 years and
older. Player escorts are selected
through a grassroots school
programme, a legacy for the sport
as well as a great chance for
younger children to get involved
with football.
As with most team sports, there
seems to be a larger dropping out
of players once they hit teenage
years and it is huge tournaments
like this one that boost
participation numbers, alongside
the long-term strategies from
federations and local football
clubs.
One of Christchurch’s local
clubs has had a steady number of
junior and youth players over the
last few years. After a successful
merger three years ago between a
strong club at senior level and a
club with large junior numbers,
Cashmere Technical was born.
Cashmere Technical’s football
development manager, Fred
Simpson, has been involved all the
way through and believes the club
keeps progressing through its high
performance at top level.
Cashmere Technical won back-toback Chatham Cup titles in 2013
and 2014 and that certainly attracts
players.
‘‘Retaining and attracting
committed, ambitious and talented
youth players is not a problem if
you have the right resources,’’
Simpson says.
‘‘Catering for the recreational
player through the teen years is
more of a challenge. The costs are
the same whether serious or
recreational and the expectation is
still to have quality coaching,
regular games and quality gear
while the commitment level of
players varies immensely,
parental support generally
diminishes and quality training
facilities including lights aren’t on
offer.’’
For a club with about 30 youth
teams (12 to 18-year-olds), it’s a
bonus that FIFA has selected their
home ground to be used as a
training ground for the Under-20
World Cup. Garrick Park has
therefore gone through a largescale upgrade and now boasts a
sand-based pitch and new
changing facilities.
Ferrymead Park and Avonhead
Park have also been upgraded to
fulfil FIFA’s training pitch
requirements and will also serve
as a long-term asset for football in
Christchurch.
‘‘With hundreds of junior and
youth games scheduled every
weekend, it’s fantastic to have
some top quality pitches available
to local players’’, says Mainland
Football’s game development
manager, Colin Grant.
‘‘Especially during the wet
winter months, it becomes a
challenge for Mainland Football to
have everyone playing each
weekend.’’
Mainland Football and the
clubs have a responsibility to
ensure that more than 12,000
players each weekend get a quality
experience and want to come back
for more. This is especially
important during the traditional
winter competition but the draw
card lies in the ‘‘off-season’’.
A number of football
tournaments are held across the
country to provide players with
plenty of opportunities to play for
club or school. Compared to boys’,
girls’ football seems to have higher
retention rates within teenage
years. Due to a lower number of
girls participating, and therefore
less competition than the general
male player receives, a lot of
female players are involved with
both club and school football.
Megan Shea, who looks after
the senior women’s side at
Cashmere Technical, believes that
the number of playing
opportunities the girls have
encourages them to keep playing.
‘‘With the average age of the
Women’s Premier League being
reasonably low, it attracts female
youth players to keep playing and
reach such goals.’’
For the past few years,
Cashmere Technical girls U-17
have been going to arguably New
Zealand’s biggest club tournament
for players under 17 in Auckland.
‘‘Being able to provide players
with the opportunity to be playing
at such tournaments certainly
helps attract young players,’’ Shea
says.
She adds: ‘‘For a few reasons, I
think it [Auckland U17
tournament] draws players along,
not only for the tournament itself
Halswell United juniors are excited to be back on the pitch and to start working on their football skills
again.
Steve Ager introduces Oscar Martin-Pawson, aged 10, to valuable football skills
at the All Stars Kids Club holiday programme.
Cashmere Technical’s Oscar Evans faces a stern challenge in the Robbie’s
Mainland Premier Football league.
but what the club offers alongside
this and the hard work put in to
make it work.’’
With the FIFA Women’s World
Cup in Canada following directly
after the U-20 World Cup in New
Zealand, there is plenty of highquality women’s football being
showcased to inspire the next
generation of footballers.
One of Victoria Esson’s finest football moments came in 2008 as a member of the New Zealand under17 side that contested the age-group World Cup on home soil.
Volunteer dedicated
to the game of football
SIDELINE SUPERSTAR
S
teve Ager is highlighted in
this year’s first edition of
Sideline Superstar.
Ager is a through and
through football man who has
been involved as a volunteer for
more than 35 years. After his
playing days, he joined New
Brighton’s club committee in the
early ‘80s and, through years of
experience, ended up as club
president.
‘‘I started coaching because an
injury prevented me from
playing,’’ Ager says.
‘‘Around the same time I
started my first volunteer role for
New Brighton to give something
back to the game.’’
Ager was part of the successful
merge between two fierce local
rivals, New Brighton and Rangers,
to what is now Coastal Spirit
Football Club and he hasn’t given
up on giving back to the game
since.
Instead, he generally spends
four nights a week and each
Saturday at the club.
He’s Coastal Spirit’s club
manager, board member and also
fulfils various coaching roles for
the club as well as the Canterbury
representative age groups.
‘‘I have had a lot of pleasure out
of football over the years. I enjoy
putting the hours that I can into
coaching and seeing young players
reach their full potential,
especially those that go on to play
at New Zealand representative
level.’’
Coastal Spirit has been very
successful especially in the
women’s game, winning the New
Zealand Women’s Cup in 2013 as
well as developing several (junior)
Football Ferns. Ager has followed
the team and individual players
closely, assisting with ball kids
and mascot duties whenever he
could.
This year, Ager will be one of
the youth programme supervisors
for the FIFA U-20 World Cup after
gaining experience as youth
coordinator for the FIFA U-17
Women’s World Cup in 2008.
In all that he does for the game,
he hopes to have been able to pass
on a wealth of knowledge and
experience to not only the players,
but also to the future
administrators of the sport.
Community to gain new facility
W
ith one flick of the
switch, the FIFA Under20 World Cup suddenly
got a lot closer.
After months of designing and
constructing, the specialist team of
Connetics tested the state of the art
floodlights around the new
artificial pitch at Avonhead Park
earlier in the month.
The park will be used as a
training facility for the FIFA U-20
World Cup and afterwards it will
be given back to the community as
part of the tournament’s legacy.
The training ground is a
collaboration between the
Christchurch City Council and
Mainland Football, who were able
to source FIFA funding to contract
Connetics to build floodlights fit
for the world-class athletes who
will be using the facility.
Forty-four lamps lit up the pitch
black park, a magical moment for
then active, now resigned,
Mainland Football chief executive
Mike Coggan.
‘‘This moment has been in the
pipeline for a long time.
‘‘These new lights will leave a
long-time legacy for football in
Christchurch and, as a sport, we
owe a huge debt of gratitude to the
funding support from FIFA via NZ
Football Foundation and
Christchurch Earthquake Appeal
Trust.’’
He pointed out that the
earthquakes had created immense
challenges for the replacement of
lost facility infrastructure.
‘‘Through the terrific support
and work of both the Christchurch
City Council in developing the
ground and Connetics who
installed the lights, Avonhead
Park now offers a significantly
improved high-quality city football
asset.’’ Connetics general manager
business services, John
Thompson, was there to witness
the milestone with Coggan.
Thompson said he was proud
that Connetics had been given the
opportunity to show their design
and construction capability by
creating a fit-for-purpose lighting
solution that meets the elite
demands of a FIFA event.
‘‘I think our team has done a
terrific job and I am sure the
visiting teams will enjoy the nighttime trainings at this venue, just
like the local teams that will be
using them in the years to come,’’
Thompson says..
‘‘We are committed to giving
something back to the Canterbury
community by supporting local
youngsters to participate in
sports.’’
Proud sponsor of
Junior and Youth
Canterbury Competitions
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John Thompson and Mike
Coggan watched the FIFA
U-20 World Cup take
another step closer to
fruition with the
installation of floodlights
at Avonhead Park.