Academy scores with holiday programme

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – Auckland City FC Academy held  a highly successful  four-day holiday football programme between 17-20 April at Epsom’s St Peters College.

The activities were designed to specific age groups and with a goal to strike a balance between helping the participants in developing new footballing skills while making new friends and having heaps of fun.

Apart from Academy coaches a number of Auckland City first team players including Adam Mitchell and Gerard Garriga have lent a helping hand to engage with the players and to promote the game and the club throughout the the week.

Both players were impressed with the talent on show as well as with the attitude of the youngsters.

“Yeah it’s been great working with the young generation and future, hopefully Auckland City players. It’s really good to get the kids down here during the school holidays, exert a bit of energy and taking them through the kind of training programmes that we work on with the first team as well, and like I said hopefully producing  new talent for the club,” Mitchell explained.

His Navy Blues teammate, Garriga was also full of praise of the players.

“Yeah, yeah there are a couple of good players and a couple of lefties as well, you are always looking for left-footers and it’s great to see a lot of them playing good football, said the Auckland City midfielder.

Aside from the carefully planned footballing activities the programme also placed a high emphases on the enjoyment of the game.

“The kids are here for a reason, they want to be here and they want to play football so we just take them through our programme and  we try to get the best out of them and it’s nice to the kids really enjoy themselves with a smile on their faces,” said Mitchell.

At the conclusion of the four-day holiday programme, the City duo will turn their full focus to this Saturday’s Northern League clash with Melville United and are hoping to see some of the youngsters they met in the crowd at Kiwitea street.

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