HIGHMOOR-IBIS AFC NEWS

Highmoor Plan Football Academy - 22 March

Hellenic League Premier Division Club Highmoor Ibis announce they are launching a Football Education Academy at Palmer Park.

Players aged 16 to 18 will be given the opportunity to spend two years on a full-time education and development programme. Based at the Ibis club in Scours Lane, Reading, it will be aimed at students currently in years 11 or 12 who want to combine playing football at a high level while studying for a career in sports industry.

Scholars will train on a daily basis with UEFA A and B licence coaches. They will compete in various regional under 18 leagues and the FA Youth Cup. Highmoor will be looking to maintain the boys’ progress, playing for the club’s under-21 side in the Reading League and going right through to the first team currently in the Hellenic League Premier Division.

The football trials start next Thursday (6pm) at Rivers Health Club in Scours Lane. Further dates are Tuesday April 9 (10am-1pm), the following day at the same time, Thursday May 2 (6pm) and Wednesday May 29 (10am).

Plans for the Academy are the latest in first-team manager Shane Small-King’s ambition of making Highmoor the second biggest football club in the Berkshire area behind Reading FC. Not for the first time, Palmer Park Stadium was the only venue in the Reading area to stage a soccer game on a rain-lashed Saturday. Quick drying ground and the expertise of the ground staff ensured the Highmoor ibis and Ascot game could go ahead.

Highmoor's next two games in the league come in quick succession, Abingdon Town tomorrow and Newbury on Monday, both games where they feel they have a good chance of picking up points. Coach Fabian Coultress said his side must cut out errors if they are to return to winning ways in the Hellenic League. “We are making too many individual errors and need to cut them out,” said Coultress following the Ascot game, which was the only one in the Premier and Divisions 1 and 2 to beat the bad weather. We also need to work more as a unit.”

But overall Highmoor are holding their own in their first season in the Premier Division and are looking to build on their success. “We’re already looking to next season and planning to bring in more players,” added Coultress.

Boost For Youth Football in Reading - 8 June

Local young people in Reading will be putting on their boots following a £5,000 Grow the Game grant, from the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity. We will also be partnering with XMA who are one the largest suppliers of IT to local educations and government throughout the country.

The grant will allow Highmoor-IBIS Football Club to develop two new teams over the next three years. The Uber-18s will compete in the Allied Counties Youth League and the Under-21s in the Reading Football League. XMA will help with the supply of training equipment and development of the Highmoor youth academy building on their parent company Westcoasts sponsorship of the men’s section.

These are vital steps in the clubs development plan as it aims to continue its progress through the Non-League pyramid. The grant also ensures a significant amount will be invested in coach development as up to four coaches will have the opportunity to achieve various qualifications from FA Level 1 to Level 3 in order to support the new teams.

Trials for the Under-18s begin on Thursday 14th June, 7.30pm at Rivers Health Club (IBIS), Scours Lane, Highmoor’s youth home location.

The core objective of the Football Foundation’s Grow the Game’s programme is to increase participation and enable more people to play our national game through supporting the development of grassroots clubs. The programme is delivered in partnership with all of the 46 County FAs and funded by The FA and Government.

So far Grow the Game has awarded 894 separate grants worth £4,354,926 to grassroots football clubs. Analysis of the monitoring and evaluation so far predicts that this will result in the creation of 3,716 brand new football teams competing in FA-affiliated leagues, 70,489 new players participating each week and 14,111 new qualifications or courses being completed.

The key strength of Grow the Game is that its participation increases are sustainable rather than transient. Its grants create a solid infrastructure of teams and newly-trained coaches in which new people can start playing the sport, rather than simply providing temporary activity sessions, which are then vulnerable to drops in participation once the programme ends.

The Football Foundation is the country’s largest sports charity, launched in 2000 and funded by the Premier League, The FA, and the Government (via Sport England). Since then it has awarded around 8,000 grants worth more than £420m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £520m.

Gary Clifford, Head of Youth, said: “The investment from the Football Foundation means that the clubs aspirations to develop a youth system that can support the adult teams can be realised. We are a club with big ambitions but we believe in doing things the right way and this is just the start of a new and exciting chapter in the clubs history.”

Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: “I congratulate Highmoor-IBIS FC for receiving this Grow the Game grant, which will increase sport participation and support football development in the region. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Berks & Bucks FA for their help in making this happen.

“The new teams and players generated by the Grow the Game scheme, since its launch three years ago, will go a long way towards helping The FA to achieve its growth target of 150,000 new participants by 2013. It is also helping government and Sport England get more people engaging in regular sport.

“The Football Foundation is committed – with funding provided by the Premier League, The FA and Government – to improve grassroots community sporting provision and help make this legacy vision a reality.”

For more information about the work the Football Foundation is doing all over the country visit www.footballfoundation.org.uk or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FootballFoundtn.