District SFA National Futsal Festival 

Friday 13 January 2012By ESFA Office

Last Updated:
10/02/2021 10:48:55

District Schools FA teams at Birmingham National Futsal Centre on 07 January 2012

Participating teams at teh National Futsal Centre, Birmingham

First ever District SFA National Futsal Festival proves a hit!

Two teams participated from each of the competing associations in the first ever National Futsal Festival for primary District Teams, and we would like to thank them for making this festival such a huge success. It is now hoped that the event will become an annual feature.

Bassettlaw, Bath, Bath Under 10s, Bootle, Bromsgrove and Droitwich, Chester, Dacorum, Loughborough, Kettering, Orpington, Plymouth, South London, Torbay and West Wiltshire all took part. The festival was hosted by Bath & West Wiltshire Schools’ FA on Saturday, with twenty four teams from all over England gathering at the futsal centre in Birmingham to compete in 130 games over one (extremely) busy day!

Being a festival, the aim was to give the boys a taste of a new format of football without the pressures of knockouts or league tables.

New to most, Futsal is such an exciting game which emphasises individual close ball skills developed through an increased number of touches, essentially 5-aside but with some twists, Futsal has been designed to provide a high paced, energetic, fast flowing game for spectators at the same time as allowing players to be at their most creative. Players are nearly always placed in reduced space situations and are constantly forced to make decisions using speed of thought, quick reflexes and even quicker feet!

The end-to-end, non-stop, goalmouth action proved a major hit, leaving players, coaches and parents all asking when the next event will be held.

The event was sponsored by the Premier League and they stepped in to provide the resources as part of a new initiative to support schools’ district football in the Foundation Phase. This is in conjunction with the new Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) which is soon to be rolled out to Academies across the country. As well as supplying the venue, the players each received a medal almost identical to those awarded to Premier League winners Manchester United last season, and a Nike gift bag.

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