Courtesy: GazetteLive - Middlesbrough


Bring on Ipswich Wolves!

by Damon Shaw

After a busy week in work and in my little spare time promoting futsal, I am very ready for a good sleep before it all starts again tomorrow. My main focus, and quite rightly, has been the charity match versus Ipswich Wolves on Saturday, and despite a few missing details I am sure things will fall into place come kick off. I have been tirelessly promoting the match in any way I can think of. I’ve worked for TFM radio now for three years in the promotions team, so I have been using every trick in the book to try and get people to the game. Letters to businesses, posters, flyers, Facebook, and talking to people have been the main theme of my last week, both in promoting futsal and while at work for TFM.

As you may know, Club Millennium is reopening on Friday, and I have been out and about telling people this! Simon Webbe of Blue fame will be opening the new club on Friday and Thursday night will see Kelly Llorenna singing to a couple of thousand 11-16 year olds at Sweet, TFM’s kid’s disco.


So, as you can imagine it’s been a busy week or two for Boro Futsal and me. Amidst all this promotion a few great moments have passed under my nose almost unnoticed. Firstly, we attended the inaugural meeting of the FA Futsal League North in Sheffield on Tuesday. It was a somewhat historic meeting and we received some great news for Boro that we are hosting our home games in Teesside, rather than in the central venue, in Sheffield. This means that futsal is coming to Boro in a big way. Secondly, I received an offer that is almost too good to be true. Last summer I was a volunteer in Slovenia at the European University Futsal Championships and I was basically asked to be pitch attendant and water boy, not quite what I had applied for, but as I was able to watch a lot of futsal and make some good contacts, I wasn’t bothered at all. However, I didn’t want to leave Slovenia having only contributed this to the tournament, knowing I had so much to offer, so I took it up on myself to help out a couple of girls who were writing the daily bulletin after all the games for the day had finished. This extended my working day from 11am to 8pm to 11am to 3am, but as you will shortly see, it was well worth the lack of sleep and social time! We produced some fun daily bulletins towards the end of the tournament and although I kept myself behind the scenes, my contribution was noticed by the organising committee. I had made my intentions clear when I arrived that I would be returning in 2008 for the World University Futsal Championship, which the same organising committee will be hosting, but I never expected that I would be offered the position of PR Manager for the World Championships! So, within minutes of reading the email, I accepted the offer, so now I am just waiting for some more information and details of my job, which will be a two to three week placement in Slovenia, in a beautiful town called Koper. If you want to see the daily bulletins, which helped me get the job here’s the link: http://www.susa.org/eufc2007/bulletins.htm

There are still a few details to be confirmed ahead of taking on the Portuguese, but I am sure, as always happens, everything will work out. With all the organising to be done, I haven’t had much time to think about actually locking horns with the English Champions, which will be my second encounter with such opposition. We played Doncaster College, in November 2005, at home, in front of a 60 strong crowd and won 5-4 in a tough but very satisfying match. We have come a long way since then and Ipswich will be a different prospect altogether, but still I am looking forward to it very much. The team is taking shape and the 12 players I use for the Ipswich game will be a strong indication of the 12 players I would consider my first team. I am registering 14 players for the FA Futsal League North, which means 4 players will miss out for now. We won 5-1 this weekend against a decent Teesside FC, a team that came close to beating us in November to put us on top of the Tees Valley Futsal League. I saw a few things that will definitely shape my squad selection over the course of the weekend, most notably a new player who came training with us for the first time last Monday. He’s made an impression already and I think he has the potential to be a good player for us, providing he is willing to learn and be patient. I also saw one of our most comfortable performances, which is pleasing to see with only 2 weeks until we kick off the League campaign.

I’ve told you about my efforts to promote the game, but I haven’t actually tried to sell you the event! Well if you’re reading this, I’m sure you will already know about it, so I will just urge you to give me a call and get some tickets. It’s going to be a fantastic event. I’ve had a lot of support from Make A Child Smile, TFM radio, Thistle Hotel, Camels Hump, Onyx Rooms and the club to get this event to where it’s at now, which is hopefully going to be a full house. There are spectators coming from Leeds, Leicester, Hartlepool, Manchester, Birmingham and Blackburn, as well as Ipswich. The details for the game are on www.BoroFutsal.co.uk. Sign up to the mailing list and you can win VIP tickets, which will get you some food and drinks during the event.

Ok, so I have to get going, as tomorrow is the start of another week and it will be even busier than this one. Keep yourself up to date with our goings on at www.BoroFutsal.co.uk.

Good night and hopefully see you on Saturday!






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