Celtic FC Academy hosts successful festival of football

In partnership with

Celtic F.C.

·2 October 2023

Celtic FC Academy hosts successful festival of football

The Celtic FC Boys' Academy hosted a successful festival of football at Barrowfield on Sunday (October 1).

The tournament consisted of a six-a-side competition for U12s from academies across Scotland and England.

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Those teams taking part included Celtic, Dundee United, Motherwell, Hamilton Accies and Manchester City.

Each club had two participating teams who split into two group stages, and after each playing one another in 18-minute matches, one final placing match would take place, with the corresponding position from Group A, facing the team who finished in the same spot in Group B

It proved to be another successful afternoon, with the youngsters going up against different challenges, whilst also enjoying a fantastic day of football.

Each young player and team had plenty they could take away from the terrific experience at Barrowfield

Speaking on the success and importance on festivals like Sunday, Head of Children’s Programmes, Willie McNab said: “We spoke as a working group for Club Academy Scotland, and we have been looking at ways of creating better experiences for players.

“How we have managed to do that was to look at three weeks that we had in the calendar and have a bit of carte blanche in saying here are the events that you can go try.

“So today we had some slightly different formats, six-a-side games changing that there were no throw-ins. So we had dribble-ins or kick-ins because it keeps the game moving faster.

“We also had shorter 18-minute games, but also playing against different opposition. Getting Manchester City up, Dundee United, Motherwell and Hamilton.

“These are all different games that you play against. So it takes our kids out of their comfort zones and that is hopefully going to accelerate development.

“That is the kind of idea to try and arrange events like this for the kids. It’s going to help their overall development.”

“It’s a great challenge,” McNab explained. “We played against Man City, and they play a totally different way to how Motherwell or Dundee United might.

“So the kids today experienced losing a game, winning a game, being behind or maybe not having as much of the ball.

“With that, we can try and prepare them as well as possible, if they do get to play in the UEFA Youth League or maybe in the Champions League at Celtic Park, you have given them all these different experiences.

“We want to try and create technically better players, so sometimes having more kids playing, like today, although it was smaller sided games the kids got loads of game time.

“That is only going to help up in developing young players.

“They enjoy it as well, which is the most important thing. They have had loads of different experiences, whereas just before, they would come down and play a normal game which is maybe a wee bit stale.

“So it’s just about trying to reinvigorate that a wee bit.”