National Age Grade Tournaments – Welcome Return

  • Post category:Juniors

From Capital Football website:

National Age Grade Tournament Makes Comeback

12 September 2013

The seven football Federations are pleased to announce the return of the national age grade representative tournament as part of the Federation Talent Centre (FTC) programme. It will be held in Wellington over four days in mid-December.

Each of the seven regions, Northern, Auckland, Waikato-Bay of Plenty, Central, Capital, Mainland and FootballSouth, will be sending three teams, 15th Grade and 16th Grade boys’ teams, and an Under 15s girls’ team.

The tournament will be held at three top class facilities around the Capital, with the 15th Grade boys in Upper Hutt, the 16th Grade boys in Petone and the girls teams based in Island Bay. The teams are being accommodated at venues near where they are playing.

The tournament will kick off with the first games being played on the afternoon of Saturday 14 December before all the teams head to Westpac Stadium to watch the Wellington Phoenix play against Brisbane Roar.

The tournament will conclude on Tuesday 17 December with a prizegiving at Memorial Park where an overall winning Federation will be crowned, and also a Tournament Team of 15 will be selected based on nominations by opposition coaches.

Capital Football’s Football Development Manager Michael De Bono said the tournament is a great opportunity for players to compete against their peers from around the country. “Our Capital teams will be pitting themselves against players from Whangarei all the way down to Invercargill. These players don’t get this opportunity anywhere else, so it’s great that we’re able to give these kids such an exciting experience.”

Chris Canton, Chair of the Capital Football Board agrees, stating that “it’s great to see the return of such an important event in the national calendar. The Board fully supports this initiative and to have it based in our region, the home of football, is fantastic.”