Girls Football
Having
visited Sweden in March this year, Bernie Airlie, Head Coach of Girls Football
(amongst many other roles) , came back with the information that the Swedes
have girls making up around 20% of their club memberships. So, we have set this
as a target for our club, which means growing our 50-odd girls to around 200!
In order to
achieve this, I have been visiting Carolside Primary (P5/6) on Mondays,
Netherlee Primary (P5) and Woodfarm High (S1) on Thursdays to offer free
girls-only football either at lunchtime or after school in association with the
Active Schools Co-ordinators. A club will start in Busby Primary from December
on a Wednesday afternoon.
Woodfarm
Co-ordinator, Marie Baxter, has already asked us to continue this programme for
the Woodfarm cluster primary schools in January 2014. Hopefully the other
schools/co-ordinators will take us up on this great offer so that we get as
many girls as possible playing the game regularly!
Swedish Visitors
Two weekends
ago, around 20 members of the Swedish/Stockholm FA and club representatives
were over in Scotland visiting as part of an exchange programme between FAs. Scottish
FA Club Development Officer Danny Bisland recommended that as well as visiting
St Mirren the Swedish coaches check out our very own Soccer Centre.
On a cold,
winter morning (apparently not as cold as in Sweden!) we guided our guests
around the Soccer Centre, down to our building site in Eastwood Park and
finally onward to our fantastically renovated pavilion at Norwood Playing
Fields. The Swedes spoke about their clubs' setups and asked about our own
before being treated to a drink, pie and sausage rolls, as well as the great
hospitality of Jim and Alan Dobson- thanks guys!
European Connections
Giffnock SC
Chairman Joe McKerns and the Football Development Officer (me) made the trip to
visit the Town Twinning Association's Networking Meeting last weekend to
promote the club, our International Football Festival 2014 and establish links
with even more European football clubs. Joe presented to the committee and the
local authority of Borken was sold on establishing links. We spent Saturday
afternoon visiting a number of sports clubs in the area with the Sports
Development Officer for the town. At the meeting were representatives from
towns in Denmark, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany and England.
This was a
fantastic opportunity and the hospitality was exceptionally good- we're looking
forward to the next meeting already!
More Awards
Following on
from winning Best Community Club in Scotland 2013 and Giffnock SC
Treasurer/Administrator/Soccer Centre Coach/Girls Football Head Coach/Committee
member/everything in between, Bernie Airlie, winning West Region Volunteer of
the Year 2013- Giffnock SC has also been well represented at this year's East
Ren Council Awards.
The winners
of these great awards are as follows:
Volunteer of
the Year – Stewart Daniels
Young
Persons Coach of the Year – George Milliken
Young Coach
of the Year – Murray Donaghey
And Finally…
Giffnock SC are still looking for players form our Soccer
Centre to get involved with our annual trip to the Konika Minolta Cup in
ALbertslund, Denmark but spaces are filling up fast.
Our Club Committee minutes are now available on the website
Keep an eye on the facebook, twitter and website for details
on the Soccer Centre as the cold weather starts to kick in and also the Mearns
Castle exams make the indoor halls unavailable.
As always, please leave your comments and feedback in the
section below, and thanks for reading.
