SUMMER COMPETITION

Last night Wednesday the 5th of September saw the Futsal Tasmania Summer Season kick off its grading games for juniors and seniors at its new summer home.

The venue for this extravaganza was The Tasmanian Hockey Centre and the evening was a resounding success with participation at an all time high for Futsal in Tasmania. In an initiative that is a state first the response was amazing and we had over 1000 players participate throughout the evening. The bar faclities at the Hockey Centre were open for all parents and senior teams and youngsters got to stick around and watch senior games in what created a great feeling amongst participants.

In senior mens the existing teams were not included in the first weeks grading and also womens was not included at this stage. These teams will come in over the next couple of weeks in time to be graded for the kick off of the Season which will be Wednesday 26th of september.

There were over 40 junior teams competing on the night and this is growing as we speak with entries flowing in for the start of the roster. There looks at this stage that seniors will be approaching anything up to 100 teams come the start of the roster.

With numbers soaring through the roof and the possibility of having almost 150 teams in juniors and seniors together Futsal Tasmania and The Tasmanian Hockey Centre have now looked at the possibility of expanding to extra night per week.

All feedback so far has been extremely positive and once we install the nets dividing the courts next week the competition will be set to kick off in a frenzy.

All participants and organisers are extremely excited about this and we would love for any sort of coverage people can provide us at the start of the season as i believe we will be one of the largest participated sports come the summer.

Also i am sure that we would be able to write a weekly column for any newspaper or website that would be interested in putting us in as this can only help with exposure of the game. Not only for our state players and senior mens comps but also for the juniors coming through in what i feel is the best football development tool currently available in the world.

I have attached a few photos from the evening last night for your perusal in the following email.


SCHOOL TITLES STATE TEAMS

In october over 100 Tasmanian school children will be heading to Melbourne for the 2007 Vikings Australasian School Futsal Titles in which teams all across Australia will compete to become the national school champions.

This is the biggest event as far as participation goes for school children in the southern hemisphere including all sports.

From the Australasian school titles these kids will get the opportunity to be looked at by selectors for upcoming overseas tours with Vikings Australia. In the past we have had several Tasmanian players invited to these and recently we had 4 Tasmanian youths travel overseas in representative sides to Brazil and New Zealand.

I am extremely excited as is all of the children at Tasmania's prospects at the upcoming championships and in my first year i am looking forward to helping these kids develop and harness the potential they all have.

With the help of school teacher Francis Vucica (New Town Primary School) and Junior night manager of Futsal Tasmania Gill Edmondson, these kids have sold countless amounts of fundraising chocolates to get themselves to Melbourne and have been an absolute pleasure to coach with their willingness to learn and hard work ethic.

The state sides have a number of players from the local african community who have excelled in their english learning and also their communication by being a part of these squads. They have also showed some great potential on the court with some of the african children being amongst Tasmania's strongest players. It shows the amazing cultural unity that sport provides and Futsal is no exception.

These players travelling away to represent Tasmania could be the future stars of our Football in Tasmania without a doubt.









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