A new and free football programme is to striving to make the game more accessible for South Canterbury girls.
Last month, a girl’s football development squad was established by Southern Football in South Canterbury with the goal of creating more opportunities for girls to get involved in football locally.
Waitaki and South Canterbury football development officer Leigh Matthews said the programme catered for girls aged 10-15, and was open to players of all experience levels.
“We’ve got 26 girls at the moment, some have only played for about three weeks and some have played for a lot longer.
“The idea is just have this age group training together so that when we do talent ID games and workshops, they’re going to have the core principles down a bit more.
“It’s important to give girls more training opportunities in an environment they’re comfortable with. Training together makes a big difference for girls.”
The programme stemmed from New Zealand Football recognising that, at the moment, there was a lack of girls from the South Island in national rep teams, he said.
“The long-term goal with creating a development programme like this is to give girls the opportunity to trial and hopefully play at the highest level possible.”
It was great to set up a programme like this in South Canterbury, Mr Matthews said.
“It’s important for girls to have opportunities to learn with different coaches, hear different voices and touch the ball more.
“Hopefully we’ve set something up that can grow organically and help the girls here improve their skills.
“We’ll push on for the rest of the term, see what the demand is like and hopefully we can keep on going through term three.”
Training sessions are held every Tuesday and Friday evening and attendance is flexible.
Anyone interested in learning more or wanting to register for the sessions can do so by emailing Mr Matthews at [email protected]
