Posted by OCVC
on May 28, 2009, 4:52 pm
Oxfordshire Football Partnership
Exciting Opportunities for Male & Female players aged 16-19yrs old.
A major opportunity for local youngsters to plan their future and develop their sports related career has emerged with this major new project launched by three experienced and respected partners.
This unique partnership brings together the experience and strengths of the already hugely successful Oxford & Cherwell Valley College, Premier Sports Group and Oxford City Football Club to provide the perfect platform for learning. Within a full time education programme, carefully designed courses will offer the broadest choices and also focus on the basics of running a football club and the community involvement of each of the partners – providing important social awareness and experience for students.
Oxford & Cherwell Valley College have an established infrastructure and first class tutors with over a decade of experience in full time football education achieving outstanding results and many players progressing onto University as well as professional football clubs. Current Oxford City players Andy Ballard, who played Conference football for Eastbourne, and Steve Davis came through the club youth structure supplemented by the full time college course as did ex-City star Garath McCleary who is now under contract at Nottingham Forest.
The formal linking of the Oxford City youth structure and the full time education programme is a natural progression for the club who can also boast strong charity and school links within its structure of over 30 teams across all age groups including veterans and Oxford City Casuals, its learning disability section. The club were voted national Community Club of the Year in 2008 and have the strongest girls and women’s structure in Oxfordshire having won the county cup five times in the last six years and currently play at Step 3 in the national women’s football pyramid. Not surprisingly, a key focus of the new initiative will be specifically designed courses for women and participation and coaching opportunities within the strong football club structure.
City first team manager Justin Merritt is managing director of Premier Sports Group who have an excellent reputation in delivering innovative and tailored education courses on behalf of schools and colleges throughout Oxfordshire. The combined internal tutorial strength of the partner organisations makes the flexibility and educational quality of the course opportunities second to none – the integration of the students into the structure and environment of the football club will add a unique social dimension to their personal development.
Within their full time courses, students are able to undertake:
• FA Coaching Certificates Level 1 & 2
• First Aid for Sport Levels 2 & 3 Injuries
• FA Coach Education courses
• Basic Referees qualifications
• CSLA Award
A full course brochure is available by clicking here - http://issuu.com/dbuckingham/docs/oxfordshire_fooball_partnership_booklet
For those choosing to extend their education to degree based courses there are also links in place to Bucks New University based in High Wycombe with established pathways onto their Sports Management Courses and Foundation Degrees. At all stages of the career development of the students the focus is on flexible choice together with relevant and appropriate experience.
The students, aged from 16 to 19 will represent Oxford City in the midweek college leagues including the FA Youth Conference League against opponents such as Birmingham City, Wycombe and Barnet. This progressive club recently received approval to lease land alongside the stadium at Court Place Farm to develop an all-weather, floodlit full size artificial grass pitch together with 6 netball courts. Funding support is available from the Football Foundation and when planning criteria are satisfied this will provide the Oxford community with much needed state of the art training facilities.
For any further information please visit the OCVC website - http://www.ocvc.ac.uk/content/oxford-city-football-partnership which also includes BBC News coverage of the schemes.
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