Welcome to the Junior section of the Eastern Suburbs Football Club. To be part of a team in the Junior section of the club, a child must have been born before 30th April 2005, and not after 31st Dec 2001. There are no exceptions to this rule. If your child is younger than this, then ESAFC also runs a Soccer Stars program which is an introduction to Soccer. Contact us for more information. If your child is born after the 31st Dec 2001, then you should be registering on the Youth section of the website.
Grades are as follows:
- 5th Grade Born prior April 30th 2005
- 6th Grade Born 2004
- 7th Grade Born 2003
- 8th Grade Born 2002
- 9th Grade Born 2001
For those of you like me that can not remember what happened yesterday, let alone in 2001, the best way to work out which grade your child should be registering for is to take the age the child is turning this year. This is their grade. i.e. has turned or is turning six this year, 6 th grade etc...
All games in the junior section are played at Madills Farm, Kohimarama, at the same time every Saturday. Please make note on the relevant grade page what your starting time is. The first game is on Saturday April 24th.
Requests to play with friends
This is by far the most difficult issue we have to deal with. With 900 children playing, many of which make a request of some sort, it is impossible to keep everyone happy. We do our best, but there are always a number of boys and girls that are disappointed. We make the teams up as follows:
1. Anyone that has volunteered to coach, we take their child and all their requests, and put them into a team. The only exception to this is if they have requested a child that is too old for the grade. Players can play up a grade, but not down. No exceptions.
2. Anyone that has volunteered to be an assistant coach, almost always gets “promoted” to coach, and they get their requests.
3. We then give priority to those children with parents that have volunteered to manage a team.
4. We then fill these teams with the other children that are left.
So as you can see those that volunteer their services, are most likely to get the desired outcome. If you want to guarantee your request, either volunteer to coach, or make sure you are on the request list of someone that has volunteered to coach. Coaching is not as onerous a task as you may think, as there is no training for 5/6 th grade, and the club provides the midweek training for the 7/8/9 th grades using our elite Youth players. They deliver material under the guidance of our Director of Coaching. So your attendance on Saturday is all that is required. It is a lot of fun! Knowledge of Soccer is not essential, as we can teach you all you need to know. What is required in abundance however is enthusiasm.
Now in saying all this, about 40% of all registrations make no request, so don’t feel you have to. The reality is that many requests come in more for the benefit of the parents, who prefer to stand on the sideline chatting to someone they know. This is fine, but Soccer can be a great avenue for your kids to mix with new friends other than those they play with at school every day. And from experience my wife and I have made great friends with a number of new people because we intentionally chose to have our sons not request specific friends.
Reps
As stated earlier, players can play up a grade, but not down. Almost all kids play in their correct grade, but a few play up for a variety of reasons. If you feel your child is well above average ability, we have a rep system in place to cater for these kids. This year if there is room in the 7/8/9 th grades, a rep team from the grade below will be included in the draw. This enables the elite kids from a younger age group to compete at a higher level. Our director of coaching (DOC) will run trials and monitor the progress of potentially elite players throughout the season, with the assistance of a variety of helpers. If you feel your child may fit into this category, please turn up to trials and/or email us to ask our DOC to have a look at your child once the season begins. DOC can be emailed at coaching@easternsuburbs.org.nz
These rep kids also attend tournaments at other clubs on a variety of Sundays during the season.
Girls
We normally have about 150 girls registered at the junior level. We try and spread them amongst the teams, with a maximum of three (and on a very rare occasion four) in one 7/8/9 th grade team, and two in a 5/6 th grade team. Unless specifically requested by the coach, we won’t put one girl in a team on her own, and do our utmost to keep friends together.
If you have any further questions, please consult the relevant grade page on the website. If the answer is not there, then either ring the Grade Co-ordinator for that grade, or preferably email them. They will respond as early as they are able to. Like most of us, they are volunteers. I certainly look forward to seeing you and your child down at the club.
Regards
Chris Ruffell
Please click the button to register:
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