FFA’s Rob Baan checks out Canberra clubs.
FFA to study Capital Football’s Junior Initiatives
Report from Capital Football’s Chris Gottaas.
Junior football in the national capital will come under the microscope this weekend when FFA’s Community Football Program Manager, Matt Bulkeley and National Technical Director Robert Baan will be in town to conduct research on local initiatives introduced by Capital Football to increase junior participation and technical development.
Following a comprehensive report into player and technical development in 2004, small sided games were introduced across the nation’s capital for all junior participants under the age of 13.
In other parts of Australia, junior footballers aged ten years and above must play their football on full sized fields with 11-a-side.
The FFA representatives will be reviewing the initiatives with the plan to implement the technical strategy nation wide.
While in Canberra, Bulkeley and Baan along with Capital Football CEO Heather Reid and Alasdair Grocock, will visit local football clubs including Weston Creek at Warramanga, Woden Valley at Mawson and Majura in Dickson.
2 comments:
I'm disappointed that of all the grounds in Canberra they chose to take the FFA officials to Waramanga and Dickson. Surely they should have taken them to Yarralumla where they would have seen the top 2 in the under 12 div 1 comp, Canberra FC and Gungahlin, play each other as well as the top under 14 div 1 team Canberra FC take on the Academy under 13s who would be 2nd if their points counted. The standard of both games was exceptional and would have been a great advertisement for Canberra football.
The FFA are looking at ways to ensure our standard of football improves.
They have strong ideas on what should be happening, small sided games, no goalkeepers in the early years..say up to under 8 so more kids get more touches, improve their skill and therefore enjoy the game more, which in turn helps the standard in later years.
So they came to Canberra to see how we were doing.
I spoke to Majura Committee Member Rhonda Parkin who has run Rhonda's Pee Wee's as it's locally known for years and years.
Up to under 6, no goalies, small goals, six a side (I think) teenage ref/advisors hand picked, and adults kept at arms length, no teams, ie change teams every week, and no points or finals.
Seems to me Rhonda has it sorted.
In NSW and Queensland Under 6's have finals and league tables.
The FFA will meet a fair bit of resistance if they introduce such a model and they want to see how it works in practice.
And they went to the other clubs to watch and learn how other clubs were progressing.
Watching a quality game between two teams wasn't really the point of the trip and wouldn't have taught them anything about how to introduce the new reforms across Australia
How to run and organise small sided games, with all their practical problems is what they are trying to introduce.
Seems in many parts of Canberra we are ahead of the pack, in other parts resistance to not having goalies for example(in Under 8's) meets with a lot of resistance from clubs and parents.
But Rome wasn't built in a day and if we want to produce better players who enjoy the game more, we have to keep pushing to improve our standards.
Small pitches, small number of players and no goalies until Under 9 is clearly the best way to improve player skill and enjoyment.
Feel free to disagree.
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