Future soccer stars from across the region had the chance to learn from one of the world’s best when Newington College’s head of football, Brian McCarthy, took the reins at the Northern Inland Academy of Sport’s National Football Camp.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
McCarthy spent 12 years as the Irish national team’s high performance manager, a period consisting of 131 games, and has worked with world-famous clubs including Real Madrid.
During his time in football he has worked closely with such names as Giovanni Trapattoni, Marco Tardelli, Sir Bobby Robson, Martin O’Neill, Roy Keane, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff and Brian Kerr.
McCarthy said the aim of the camp was to teach the young participants some of the drills and skills professional players use to improve their game.
“What we are doing is bringing a lot of good possession and attacking skill games, technical games from around the world and just seeing how the boys and girls adapt to them,” McCarthy said.
"They are all very short games, three minutes long, and then we repeat them and see if the boys and girls learn from the game.
“So our approach would be we like to give them a little taste of the game, give them basic instructions, see how much they can learn from themselves and then if we need to help them, we help them.”
The camp ran for four days and was filled with plenty of training and activities for the kids in attendance.
McCarthy said he was impressed by the talent and dedication he had seen during this week in Armidale.
"We came here not knowing what the overall standard might be but we have been very pleased with the standard from both the young players up to the older players,” he said.
"What we really enjoy is, leaving Sydney for a start is one thing, seeing what football is like in more rural areas as we know there is a great appetite for football in rural areas and sometimes the real gems and diamonds are actually sitting far away from the big cities.
“We have been really enthused by the technical standard.
“We feel the standard is so good here that the boys and girls must be doing practice at home.”
It is the first year the Academy has run the camp at SportUNE and chief executive James Cooper said the kids came from far and wide to learn from McCarthy.
“[They came from] the Queensland border without going into Queensland, coastal Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Kempsey, down to in between Newcastle and the Central Coast and out to Dubbo.
“So there strong representation within our region we are hopeful in years to come that web can grow and the numbers can grow with it.
“With Brian here it is a unique opportunity in that it is an inclusive camp and you get access to someone like that.
“Just over 100 kids in our first go is something that is pretty humbling in that many people thought it was a worthwhile investment.”
