IPSWICH Town Community Trust has defended the decision to scrap its Under 12s Community Football Club programme.The Trust wants to focus more on developing their CYFL scheme to encourage youngsters to have fun while developing skills.
By Derek Davis
IPSWICH Town Community Trust has defended the decision to scrap its Under12s Community Football Club (CFC) programme.
The Trust wants to focus more on developing their CYFL scheme to encourage youngsters to have fun while developing skills.
Following a three-year experiment, the club has refused to carry on with age groups over ten, with behaviour by some parents and the FA's insistence that they play 11-a-side cited as factors.
The CYFL has offered help to more than 100 youngsters who will need to find other clubs, or form teams of their own, if they want to carry on playing together when they step up from Under-11s.
The Community Trust runs teams from six years old and encourage fair and equal participation regardless of ability, with the emphasis on youngsters playing for fun rather than competition.
There have been concerns that the CFC has been drifting away from its core purpose and youngsters were being put under unnecessary pressure from the sidelines.
Active project manager Trevor Cox said: “We try to keep a lid on parent behaviour, whereas unfortunately with other local leagues there has been a problem.
“That then started creeping into our leagues and we began to have problems with parents from other leagues because our parents had been cocooned.
“It was a different ball game away from the CYFL.”
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