Football Academy triumphs through tough times

We didn’t get to play in our annual summer matches and tournaments at Football Academy this year, which are extremely popular days out for both players and parents.

During this period we were able to send online exercises, football skills and fitness programmes for the players to follow. We also managed to have some fun with online quizzes for parents and children, but we knew that funding was going to be a big issue when we returned. 

Fundraising initiatives

With this in mind, we set about raising £20,000 online using the Crowdfunder platform in which the final amount was doubled by Sport England. It was a fantastic effort by parents, children and our supporters in achieving this target. Again, this is an example of a key programme of RPT’s which receives no grant funding and simply would not survive without the incredible generosity of our supporters.

Back to training

We were given the all clear by the FA to resume full training at the beginning of September and welcomed over 110 players back to training, which included our new U6 cohort of players. The Regents Park youth league also managed to get competitive matches underway in early September to the relief of all teams. Unfortunately, you could see the impact the virus had had, as some of the children came back very unfit and it’s taken around six weeks to support them back to their pre-lockdown levels of fitness.

The season so far

Training and competitive matches at Regents Park have gone very well. We have played more matches on Saturday and Sundays than ever, with some of our coaches opting to do one-to-one coaching in their own time for children who needed extra work and fitness.

We also started a new initiative involving our older players. This is a small project with Wembley FC who are mainly based around the Harlesden and Stonebridge Park estate areas where we hold joint training sessions and matches to give players from both clubs a different football experience while trying to breakdown territorial conflicts and tensions in the area. It also encourages the teenagers to create friendships through football. Our matches were suspended by the FA again during the second lockdown.

Looking forward to 2021

In 2021 we will be:

• Introducing our new nursery/reception-aged ‘mini kickers’ football sessions.
• Increasing more match time for all our teams, which will aid development.
• Welcoming some new coaches who will be embarking on their Level 1 FA courses to become qualified coaches.
• Encouraging more dads from the local area to get involved, get qualified and become part of the coaching team.
• Launching our new football website to showcase what we do to all our supporters.