The visit of Nick Robinson, who is FA Rules & Sanctions Committee Chairman, to Sporting 87 in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday morning coincided with the second Silent Weekend to take place in the county.
Around 500 teams took part in the event which puts an emphasis on letting the players play and creating a positive learning environment, giving the players a chance to explore the game and develop their own outcomes.
Nick said: “It’s great to hear about Silent Weekend and see it in action; it’s a brilliant initiative and I would like to see it spread across the sport not just in Suffolk. It’s great that Total Football support Silent Weekend.
“I am particularly pleased to see the WAYS league in action and to speak to so many involved in the FA pilot scheme.”
Ian Cornforth, joint owner of sponsors Total Football, was also at Sporting 87 and said: “We are delighted to support Silent Weekend again; it’s fantastic to see the kids making their own decisions.
The quality of football has been fantastic. Thanks to Sporting 87 for inviting us over, they’ve been brilliant.”
WAYS Youth League Chairman Nathan French said: “It was great to experience such a positive environment across so many matches in the WAYS league at Sporting 87 this morning. The children were fantastic and we experienced some lovely football.
Credit has to go to all the coaches, referees and parents who were great at supporting Silent Weekend.
“It was great to have Nick Robinson from the FA experience both WAYS and Silent Weekend. He was welcomed by Sporting 87, who were fantastic hosts.
“We also had the privilege of having Ian Cornforth from our sponsors from Total Football present at the WAYS matches; it’s fantastic how they support all the work we do across the team at Suffolk FA.”
Teams from across the county took part in the event including the Suffolk FA WAYS Under-7 4v4 Festival sponsored by Plumb Mate Ltd plumbing and heating merchants and the Girls’ U8-U12 Festival, both staged at Elmswell Youth FC on Saturday.
Suffolk FA Football Development administrator Mike Phillips, who organised this year’s event, said: “The whole weekend was brilliant. I was once again amazed by some of the skills and decisions made, some by players who are U7s! The managers and parents really bought into the whole weekend as well, which was great to see.
“I hope all the clubs who took part took something from the weekend, and give their players more opportunity to explore their game throughout the rest of the season.”
Silent Weekend concludes with the Monday Night Football league sponsored by Haven Power based at Ipswich Academy and Kesgrave High School.
Players from Great Barton are pictured above before their match against Elmswell on Saturday morning.
This story come courtesy of the Suffolk FA. It has opinion split right down the middle, one thing is for certain it appears the FA approve so expect to see more trials and more silent weekends in league every where.
I have seen this first hand and read multiple reports from most of these events, one thing that cannot be ignored is that the kids overwhelmingly state they prefer it.Grassroots
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