Sky Sports feature success of Rayleigh Boys and Girls Football Club (From Echo)
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Sky Sports feature success of Rayleigh Boys and Girls Football Club
7:00am Wednesday 9th January 2013 in News
A film crew from Sky Sports were in Rayleigh at the weekend
A SUCCESSFUL youth football team was featured on Sky Sports as part of a new documentary.
A film crew visited Rayleigh Boys and Girls Football Club as they trained on the King George playing field off Websters Way, in Rayleigh, on Saturday, January 5.
The club, which is 38 years old, is one of the biggest in Essex and has teams ranging from under eights to veterans.
The Sky documentary aims to get more children involved in sport and with more than 135 under eights training in Rayleigh at the weekend, the club is well and truly flying the flag for youth sport.
General manager Brian Mitchell, 70, of Kingswood Crescent, Rayleigh, is one of the club’s founders.
He has been giving up his weekends to coach the mini soccer teams and help out on match days since 1976 and was recently made an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to youth football.
He said filming was “extremely successful” with some of the young players interviewed on camera, as well as himself, Essex FA representatives and Southend United striker, Neil Harris, who was coached by Mr Mitchell as a youngster.
“It was a bit of a pinnacle for us,” he said.
“Sky have been keeping an eye on us for a while and decided to do a feature after I got the MBE.
“Having the crew come down highlighted all the work that we have done over the years and it’s so well supported by the Essex FA too which helps.
“We regularly get over 100 children under eight over there on a Saturday, which is a rarity in football and that’s not counting the nine, ten and 11s who train at different grounds.”
The club, which boasts 43 youth teams, has just launched a new girls section and nine, aged between seven and nine-years-old, were also training on Saturday.
It is now looking for others girls to join them. Anyone interested in taking their children along should visit www.rayleighfc.org.uk
