Today at the Study Centre, the Junior Football Organisers have been putting their organising skills to the test by setting up and running a round robin street football tournament on the X-Box 360. Each junior coach had to select a European team and write a player profile of their chosen dangerman on the team. The tournament was then played out on the consoles. To conclude the junior coaches had to construct a league table based on the results.

The group were also treated to a brief visit from Northampton Town goalkeeper Chris Dunn, who popped in to sign a few autographs for the young coaches.

Today is the second day of the Junior Football Organiser Course at the Cobblers Study Centre. This morning the boys led different skill sessions and got to practise their coaching skills in small groups alongside professional coaches Stuart Gray and Ian Sampson who were training the Northampton Town First Team on the same pitch. After a brief rain interlude this afternoon the young coaches led their individual sessions and completed a round robin football tournament on the training pitch at Sixfields. Tomorrow the young coaches will be back in the Study Centre for a day of fun activities and sessions.

Today at the Study Centre fifteen young people from Northampton and Wellingborough are taking part in Day 1 of a Junior Football Organiser (JFO) Course. This JFO course is being run in conjunction with the Football in the Community Programme and has been funded by an Awards for All Bid. The JFO is an FA certificate course for students 14 – 19 years. The course focuses around mini-soccer, where students learn coaching, the rules, refereeing and all that is involved in organising a festival/tournament. The culmination of the course and assessment is the students having to organise and run their own mini-soccer festival.

Today the group were given a brief introduction to the award and put their practical coaching skills to the test straight away. Just after lunch the group were treated to a visit from Northampton Town Youth Team Coach Sean Parrish. They asked him questions about how to advance their coaching skills and what qualities and attributes a professional coach needs to advance.

We are looking forward to having the group back for Day 2 tomorrow.

The Cobblers Study Centre are very pleased to be working with groups of secondary school students who are working toward their FA Junior Football Organiser qualification and the S.C.O.R.E project.  The two groups from Kingsthorpe College and The Northampton School for Girls have been working with us and the NTFC Community Programme to gain skills and experience required from the course.  Last week the students from Kingsthorpe College delivered a coaching session at Upton Meadows Primary School, it was a daunting task for all involved but there was lots of positive feedback from the teachers and pupils at the school.  In a few weeks time the KC students will complete their course by organising and running a Futsal tournament at Upton Meadows.  The students from NSG have only just started their course but we have been impressed by the hard work and enthusiasm that has gone into planning sessions.  We are positive that all the students taking part in the course will make excellent role models as coaches. The S.C.O.R.E project has been funded by Awards for All

We are on our sixth week at the Cobblers. It has been really good we have had such a good time, we have made smoothies and we made a tower out of pasta and marshmallows and me and Katie won .It has been really good at the Cobblers we have enjoyed it.  We have done some football skills with Russell and we went into a game where we learnt some new skills and we have watched some clips of what it’s like. Football is a really good sport, its my favourite sport ,it’s really good and we are going to train younger people like year six and five.It will be really good to train and get younger people than us involved in football.I really have enjoyed it at the Cobblers it has been really good. Jean and the others are really nice and helpful.

Rebecca