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 2007, and not after 31st Dec 2003. 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. Details available under coaching courses (coaching). If your child is born after the 31st Dec 2003, then you should be registering on the Youth section of the website.
Grades are as follows:
5th Grade Born prior April 30th 2007
6th Grade Born 2006
7th Grade Born 2005
8th Grade Born 2004
9th Grade Born 2003
For those of you like me that can not remember what happened yesterday, let alone in 2006, 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, 6th 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 28th.
This is by far the most difficult issue we have to deal with. With 900 children playing in the junior section, 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. There are 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 a variety of coaches available to us.Material is delivered 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.
As stated earlier, players can play up a grade, but not down. Almost all players 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 players. 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. The 9th grade will enter 3 teams in the newly formed Auckland Football 9th grade league.This enables the elite players from a younger age group to compete at a higher level. We will run trials prior to the season starting to select the rep players.We will also 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 attend the trials initially. If your child is not selected, there will be other opportunities which you will be contacted about.
We normally have about 150 girls registered at the junior level. We offer "girls only" teams in the 7/8/9th grades. Our ability to do this will depend largely on player numbers, and friends requests. We may combine age groups within the girls to satisfy the numbers required. There has been a lot of research into the development of girls football, and studies show that whilst training with boys is beneficial for some, playing amongst the same gender is generally preferable. Girls football for 7/8/9th grade will be 5-a-side. Unless specifically requested by the coach in the 5/6th grade, 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
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