Football tournament

On Saturday 24th September, Arran Youth Foundations took part in an end of summer football tournament, planned in conjunction with North Ayrshire Council's Community Learning & Development and their group from Beith.

This took place at the Ormidale pavilion astroturf in Brodick. We greatly appreciate the use of the facilities there.

The main aims:

To continue building links with other groups throughout NAC
To establish a link with Beith in the hope of future joint working
To have an enjoyable time to mark the end of summer, whilst launching the autumn/winter programme and further building the young people's relationships with the AYF youth worker and volunteers

The event was a fantastic success, with the 9 young people from the Arran team playing an hour of tennis beforehand, and then a total of 16 young people taking part in the football tournament.

To even things up – by making both teams slightly worse! – the youth workers got involved in the game. Despite taking an early 6-0 lead, Arran went on to lose narrowly, with the final score 12-13.

It should be noted however that the Beith boys were all fourteen or fifteen years old, whereas the Arran team was made of twelve and thirteen year olds. At the end, everyone commented on how proud the Arran youngsters could be of their efforts.

After group photos, we said our goodbyes and everyone agreed it had been a fantastic night. Good links were made with the Beith group and hopefully next summer, this can be developed upon. The tournament was also a great chance to promote the possibility of Friday night football within the AYF church hall activities and it is hoped some of the keen footballers will filter in now.

Posted 30/09/11