SOCCER YOUTH

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 19

SOCCER YOUTH

The announcement this week by “The Press” that it is to give a cup for the junior, penalty-taking competition has been warmly welcomed by the F.A. official in charge of this popular tournament, Mr I. D. Steer, on behalf of the association.

“It is of great encouragement to our efforts to promote junior soccer that The Press* has seen itself able to make this presentation,” said Mr Steer.

“I know that noj only will the association appreciate the gesture, but also the players and their parents. It will give an already popular and successful competition an added spice to the boys attempting to win through to the finals.” The semi-finals will be held at half-time during the Christchurch United Rothmans National Soccer League matches at English Park on July 24 and August 14, and the final at half-time of the club’s vital league game with Mount Wellington on September 4. It is planned that as the clubs hold their own tournaments to find the competition qualifiers, the winners will be announced in this column.

After an enforced rest because of the wet conditions, the junior competitions got underway again last Saturday, and among the suc-

' cessful teams was the • Rangers under 10 A side, i most ably coached by Mr P. i Henricks. Rangers beat [ Rangiora narrowly, by the only goal scored by John I Maguire from a good pass by > Robert Ropes. Rangers are now firmly established in second place i in their competition and are improving all the time, with i players such as Terry Neville and Frans de Ruijter as the “strong men” of the team. Against Rangiora, the defensive work of Alistair Salton, Grant Hadley, and ■ David Farrell proved to be of tremendous value, so much so that the goal-keeper, Tony King, had very little to do. Although its forwards were unable to make much impression on the Rangers defence, the Rangiora team nhard and well to keep game. Its outstanding player was Bruce Gibson, who has developed splendid 1 control of the ball, while Wayne Dempsey, Roger Parker, Mark Sincock, and Chris Mcllroy also played their parts well. ♦ * • Last Saturday was an especially happy birthday for John Porritt of the ShirleyNomads under 10 grade team. He shared in the fine, 4-0, vic-. tory of his team over Christ-. church City B and scored three of the goals. lan Kerr added the other, from a shot taken outside the penalty area. The Shirley defence, under ' the leadership of John Koens, K. Lacey, C. Niven, and R. i Weaver, successfully held i the City forwards, and the : team’s outstanding attackers i On the day were D. Casto : and D. Connelly. Although the Cashmere-, Wanderers A team in the, under 10 grade found the, Rangers B side too strong for it, there were some boys who , deserved an honourable men-, tion. Steven Baker, Sean Weir, and David Meates pro-, duced penetrating runs with-, out being able to crack the solid Rangers defence. How- . ever, the Cashmere players 1 are improving from game to game and promise to be a source of trouble to oppo- 1 nents in the future. < ♦ # *

After an indifferent start to the under 10 grade competition, the Shamrock A team is now settling down and playing good football. The change from the smaller to the larger grounds did not come easily to this team, which still tended to jilay as individuals and is only now learning to make better uke of the ball in the extra space.

The team’s last three games have resulted in good wins—6-0, 2-0, and, last Saturday against Christchurch City A, 3-0. As evidence of the improvement in the Shamrock team-work, the previous match with City was drawn, 1-1. The boys to play well on Saturday were the wings, Steve McCormick and N. le Lievre, the striker, Jonathan Horne, and the linkman, Grant Hughes. In section two of the same grade, however, Shamrock B had to give way to Burndale, which scored the only goal of the match in the second half through C. McPheat. Burndale attacked very strongly from the start and it needed all the resolution of the Shamrock defenders to keep the score to one. T. Loveridge and John Galvin defended well, and little Chris Mela showed the other boys how to tackle and win the bait Bumdale players to

) the fore were R. Start, Ste- , ven Daw, and Peter Blokker. Western’s two teams in the : under 10 grade had mixed > results, the As drawing with i Brighton, 1-1, and the Bs < losing to Bumdale D, 0-1. The left-half, Greg Olsen, r equalised for Western after ■ Brighton had taken the lead; i Lucas Jansen (goal-keeper), i Michael Huxford (inside-left), r and Mark Hilhorst all played ■ well in an improving B team. : * * * Homby won a hard-played i match, 5-0, against Bumdale E in section 3 of the under 10 grade, and it says much for the spirit and tenacity of the Bumdale boys that although they conceded goals regularly, they stuck to their task right to the final whistle. Good tackling on defence by John Donnell, and the well-directed passes by the centre-half, Peter Clark, to his inside-forwards and wings, enabled David Leach, Simon Sonius, Tony Young, and David Norris to score goals for Homby. Without the spectacular goal-keeping of P. Gruppelaar, the Homby under 10 A team would have lost by a bigger margin than 0-3 to Bumdale A. This little lad—only 4ft tall—played like a veteran, as he pulled off some magnificent saves much appreciated by the many spectators. * * *

The Christchurch City club is to be congratulated on its enterprise in obtaining the services of its firstteam player-coach, Dave Klopper, to hold training sessions for all junior teams. He is to hold four two-hour sessions based on cover, positional play, skills, and physical fitness, and ball distribution under match conditions. The committee to run the South Island under 12 tournament in Christchurch is: Mr A. Frazer (convener); Messrs G. McPherson, N. Hopgood, H. Wilson, F. Oqrsehott (committee); Mr P. J. Campbell (publicity). , The Canterbury under 13 team is to travel to Wellington in the August holidays, and Rongotai College (Wellington) is to play two games in Christchurch in September.