Courtesy: This is Gloucester


Football project for Gloucestershire's Robinhos

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The next generation of Robinhos and Kakas are enjoying the beautiful game thanks to a community project.

ONside is bringing doorstep football activities for young people in some of the city's most deprived areas.
It encourages street football and Futsal, much loved by Brazilian football stars.

On Saturday Gloucester City Football Club welcomed the ONside team to their adopted home ground in Cirencester where the project received a cheque from the Football Foundation.

Jim Hart, ONside football development officer said the project already had seen some success stories.

He said: "We do street football and Futsal (indoor football). Some of our teams like Barton and Tredworth Allstars and Star 66 are now playing in leagues."

Funded by a number of partners including the University of Gloucestershire, Gloucester City Council and Gloucester City AFC Jim said ONside was going from strength to strength. "We want to bring people together to play football," he said.

Gloucester City Football Club's Matty Sysum , 19, said: "I think it is a really positive thing for Gloucester and for the club."
Tigers midfielder Marc Richards, 27, who lectures at Hartpury College, said ONside was a great way of bringing young people into the game.

He said: "Futsal is great, we have started a team at Hartpury. It is a great way of getting people involved in football"

City councillor Martyn White, cabinet member for heritage and leisure added: "Projects like this bring children from different communities together to take part in a sport they all enjoy."
ONside hosts regular events across Gloucester including five-a-side sessions at GL1 every Friday afternoon.
For details call Jim on 07901850934 or jahart@glos.ac.uk






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com