Forth Valley Football Academy- Latest News           March 2016

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The FVFA recently received confirmation from the Scottish FA of its position as a silver level academy within the Club Academy Scotland programme. The Academy is assessed annually and has to meet a wide range of criteria to maintain its place within the elite level of youth football. The criteria assesses the quality of provision for training, sports science and strength and conditioning as well as the facilities used, qualification level of coaches and level of support provided for an education and welfare perspective. FVFA exceeded the criteria in a number of areas and therefore maintains its position as one of the country’s most progressive academies.

FVFA Ladies Night

The first FVFA Ladies Night will take place on Saturday 23^rd April at the Macdonald Inchyra Hotel and Spa, Principle Academy Sponsors 2015-16. The entertainment for the night will be ‘Abamania’ followed by a disco and guested will also enjoy a 3 course meal and wine on the table. The proceeds of the evening will support the on-going development of the academy with tickets purchased directly through the Inchyra Hotel on 0344 8799044. Please come along for what is sure to be a fantastic evening and support the academy.

Swansea visit

Following on from the success of the trip to Swansea last year, the English Premiership side will make the trip North with their academy U15 and U16 teams to participate in a weekend of training and games with their FVFA counterparts. The Swans will be attending the Falkirk FC vs Rangers game on Friday 18^th February before taking on FVFA on the Saturday and Sunday with the games taking place at the Falkirk Stadium and Ochilview. Spectators will be welcome with further details announced nearer the time.

Children’s Academy

Our Children’s Academy encompasses the U11 and U12 academy teams as well as the U10 development squad who continue to train as a pre-academy squad at the Falkirk Stadium and Stirling University. Head of Children’s Tony Kingsley leads the programme and is supported by 5 other coaches. Tony commented;

‘We were delighted to hear that our U11s coach, David Devlin, was successful in passing his Advanced Children’s Licence (ACL); a great reward for all his hard work on, which is, a tough but rewarding course. Coach development is a huge part of the Academy as a whole and we are delighted to have three more of our Children’s Academy coaches currently going through the ACL course; Toni Smith, Steven Kay and Greg Wallace. U12 coach Gary McCormack is also currently going through his C Licence.

Our U10 group continue to train at the Academy on a Monday night and have been showcasing their talents well at training but also in a few development games against other Academy teams. We are excited about this group and look forward to welcoming them into the Academy fully after the summer break.

The U11 group are progressing well as they continue their technical and game knowledge development. Whilst technical development is key to the young players we also work hard with them on improving their game intelligence – this is essential in helping them become more rounded and intelligent footballers.

This is a new and exciting period for our U12’s. Since the winter break they are playing 11 a side football having moved on from 7 a side, which they have played up till now. We are also looking forward to welcoming and playing Glentoran and Eastern Pennsylvania in the coming month.

Meath visit

The academy welcomed players from Northern Irish club Meath Athletic last week for a training and education week based at the academy’s University base. The trip was put together with the aim or forging an on-going partnership between the club and FVFA with a similar partnership also in place with Meath and Aston Villa.

The players were aged between U12 and U19 and were provided with fantastic accommodation and hospitality at the Macdonald Inchyra Hotel and Spa. They enjoyed a busy week of training, games and educational workshops and were fully integrated in within the academy programme, taking part in all the sessions with their relevant age groups and even a couple of friendly games.

As an added experience the players took part in a workshop aimed at ‘Developing a Performance Mind-set’ a programme that all academy players aged U11-17 are soon to be part of. Falkirk FC also provided the players with match day tickets to the Queen of the south game before they departed on Saturday.

Academy Director Michael Mcardle commented;

‘The visit from Meath Athletic players and coaches was a great opportunity for us to share or practices and also learn from these young players and their coaches. The players simply joined our academy environment at their associated age-groups and were provided the same experience as our academy players throughout the week including training, education workshops, development workshops and involved in games also. The week was a great success for all involved, with great feedback received from all and we are delighted with this new partnership’

Thank you to all our partners for their continued support