Play, train and further your education
Pompey in the Community (PitC) have offered Futsal and Education Scholarships to boys for the last three academic years.
But now it’s time for the girls to be given the same opportunity.
The scholarship will offer 16 and 17-year-old girls the chance to play Futsal at a competitive national level, train full-time with professional coaches and work towards a BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Sport.
The full-time course will run for two years, allowing the scholars to study using state-of-the-art computer platforms and take part in valuable work experience opportunities with PitC.
The girls will also be offered the opportunity to take their coaching badges and additional vocational qualifications.
The work experience element of the Futsal and Education Scholarship has set PicC apart from the other courses that are offered locally. It has hugely proved popular with the current Futsal boys and their parents.
Futsal is a five-a-side indoor game, originating in South America. It is played on a hard surface with hockey-sized goals and a ball with reduced bounce. Matches are played over 40 minutes and to a stop-clock (like basketball), with time-outs allowed.
The sport naturally develops all the skills and techniques required for traditional 11-a-side football but helps to develop a more rounded player, as the small sided nature of the game requires competitors to be equally competent in both attack and defence.
Futsal is a fantastic sport in its own right whilst being an invaluable development tool for football.
The success of the PitC Futsal and Education Scholarship for the boys speaks for itself, with a 100 per cent pass rate for the first cohort of scholars who left in the summer of 2013.
One student passed his BTEC diploma with a distinction and applied for a university place, one joined the Royal Navy, another was accepted onto a personal trainer apprenticeship and PitC employed another scholar.
Any Year 11 girls wishing to carry on with their education and play a fast-growing, fast-moving sport when they leave school this summer, should come along to the Female Futsal Open Evening at the Pompey Study Centre in Anson Road (PO4 8TB) from 6pm-7pm on Monday (March 16)
PitC are also holding trials at Miltoncross Secondary School (PO3 6RB) from 6pm-7pm on Friday, March 20 and 27.
For more information about any of these events, please contact women and girls lead coach Kirsty McGee on (023) 9272 8899 or email kirsty.mcgee@pompeyitc.org.uk