FC Northwest players get English taste of the beautiful game

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This article was published 08/07/2010 (5950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While the English soccer team was being unceremoniously booted from the World Cup by Germany half a world away, Simon Collins was happy to be on a pitch in Garden City.

The 26-year-old Brit and four of his compatriots were in town to run FC Northwest’s England Soccer Camp from June 25 to July 4.

“It was the first game I’ve missed since I started watching England,” Collins said of his homeland’s 4-1 defeat in the round of 16. “With the result, it’s better we’re here.”

An academy scout for Manchester City of the English Premier League and a managing director of United Soccer Tours, a company that offers tours and training camps for aspiring players, Collins was here to work with FC Northwest’s nine-to-12-year-olds while keeping an eye peeled for any potential future stars.

Mike Morton, a coach at Manchester City’s academy who works with players as young as nine, said he was pleasantly surprised by the talent he saw on the field.

“Before we came out here the boys said to let us know. If the standard is good we might get a Man City player out of here, especially with the money we’ve got now,” Morton said, referring to the club’s newfound wealth since being purchased by a group from Abu Dhabi.

Thomas Buhler, a nine-year-old defender and midfielder for FC Northwest’s under-10 team, had such a good time at the first three-day session that he decided to return for three more days of instruction.

“It was fun,” said the Garden City resident. “I just love to play, and it was neat to learn from them because they’re English.”

For Buhler, the highlights of the camp were learning how to juggle the ball better and the mini World Cup that they played.

Morton said the new philosophy in English coaching, which was being implemented at the camp, is to let young kids play “freestyle.”

“Instead of a coach saying, ‘Do it like this,’ the idea is to let them work it out for themselves,” Morton said.

Collins and Morton believe Canada has the potential to produce world-class soccer players, but lacks the ability to continue their development into their teenage years.

“The key thing is getting everyone on the right team,” Collins said. “You need to get players at a level with players of similar ability. Otherwise they’ll lose interest.

“If you want to give kids a chance, Europe is the place to be if you want to be a footballer.”

Bob Cowie, who organized the camp for FC Northwest, said about 36 players participated individually while several of the club’s teams took part in squad training with the guest coaches on July 3 and 4.

“This is what we should be doing to keep the kids energized,” Cowie said. “Anytime we have a kid come out of our club (and join a professional club) it’s a feather in our cap.”

Collins’s company is organizing trips to England in February for two groups of players from FC Northwest, which will include academy training sessions, games against British teams and tours of famous soccer stadiums.

avi.saper@canstarnews.com