Strikers Engaging Logan Community

Strikers Community (STR)

Words: Steve Pitman, Brisbane Strikers
Image: Brisbane Strikers

Brisbane Strikers are working together with their community clubs as they seek to engage Logan’s next generation of aspiring footballers.

The NPL Queensland club was recently on hand to assist with the Logan Indigenous and Multicultural Football Program - a joint state and local government initiative in the region south of Brisbane.

Strikers teamed up with community clubs Logan City Kings and Logan Metro, as well as Logan City Council, to provide an opportunity for the children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to show what they could do with the round ball.

The program aims to introduce children from Logan’s indigenous community and other cultures the chance to get involved in football. Strikers, Kings and Metro each function as a centre to which the program can send interested children, reached through local schools, for coaching over four weeks.

Two of Strikers’ junior coaching staff – Paul Lonton and technical director David Large – participated in the program. Both said much was gained from the experience.

“The ultimate aim, through the sponsorship, was to get the kids to go and sign on with a club and Logan City Council would pay their registration”, Large explained.

“On the Friday of the fourth week we brought all the kids from the three centres together at Mappas Oval. We played five v five games and then, rather than having a five v five final, we played eleven v eleven and kept swapping players.”

“(Brisbane Strikers) had eleven regular players, Logan City Kings had eight or nine and Logan Metro had something like fifteen,” Large said, proving the interest in the initiative had been high.

The final day featured not only some exciting football, but also speeches from local dignitaries, presentations and a meal for the participants.

Large said that the attitudes of the young footballers and the ability many of them had shown were icing on the cake of a program that he said was “very, very well organized by the Logan City Council”.

“We found them to be very well behaved and, out of the eleven we had, there were three or four quite tidy footballers – probably a little bit better than what you would call a newcomer to the game”, Large said.

Strikers used assessment sheets similar to the ones they used to map the abilities and progress of their own elite junior footballers and presented them to the Council.

However, because registration costs for Strikers’ NPL teams are higher than the program could fund, they recommended that several of the youngsters register with their partner club, Kings.

“Overall, it was great to be involved in this community initiative and for the Brisbane Strikers to play a part in introducing the boys to organized football”, Large said.

“Who knows, for some of them this might be the start of a lifelong passion or even a career in the game”.




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