United SAP Programs Flourishing
GCU’s U8 boys, winners of the recent Premier Invitational
The recent Premier Invitational was a fantastic showcase of the swag of talented young players from across the Gold Coast and once again highlighted the strength of United’s SAP and related programs in both the boys and girls competitions.
SAP Director, Jamie Dixon, knows that a large part of the club’s outstanding success in both the Football Queensland SAP competitions and in tournaments like the Premier Invitational stems from the work done early to prepare these young players to progress their football through quality coaching.
“The club has a wealth of really talented young players coming through the SAP system,” Dixon confirmed
“That’s inspiring for our coaches.”
“We had over 60 young players attend our first U8’s Talent ID session for players wanting to participate in our U9 SAP program in 2020.”
“The coaching staff were blown away by the standard of footballers on show.”
The first 2020 U8 ID session held at Coplicks recently (photo Helen Anderson)
Working closely with Jamie in the club’s SAP program is Technical Director, Craig Midgley, who was also impressed by the turnout for the first ID session.
According to Midgley, “we’ve got some cracking young players coming through and the future is very bright.”
“It’s really evident to see that local clubs are doing a great job in instilling the love of the game, the kids are all full of energy and buzzing about football.”
“Across the board the number of really good young players coming through the ranks across the Gold Coast is impressive, it’s testament to the hard work done by all clubs.”
Dixon & Midgley oversee a SAP Academy that mirrors the club-wide philosophy of giving talented young players the opportunity to develop to their full potential and provide opportunities to progress along the way. That philosophy is under-pinned by a talented group of experienced, committed SAP coaches.
To compliment the work of the Academy, in 2018 Dixon established a network of Talent Centers across the Gold Coast and Northern NSW to give players at community clubs the chance for an extra night’s training each week under the guidance of GCU Academy coaches.
Confirmation of the great job that GCU’s Talent Centers are doing was the U8’s Premier Invitational win – the lads were crowned champions after 8 wins and 1 draw across the tournament – a super effort from the players and their coach Alex Morrison, the Senior Men’s coach at Surfers Paradise Apollo SC. Morrison also heads United’s Northern Talent Center at Musgrave which was well represented in the victorious U8’s side, as were the two other Gold Coast based Talent Centers based in Robina (Central Talent Centre) and Tweed (Southern Talent Centre).
A good spread of Football Gold Coast clubs were also represented in the U8’s side including players from Musgrave Mustangs, Surfers Paradise Apollo, Burleigh Heads, Tweed United and Kingscliff.
The second 2020 U9’s Talent ID session is on tomorrow, Sunday the 29th of July at Coplicks from 3 – 4.15pm.
All players are welcome to attend.
2020 U12 (current U11’s) ID sessions are next up on Sunday the 4th & 11th of August.
You can register your interest to participate in those sessions at this link http://bit.ly/IDu12in2020