What you may call street soccer is being given a new lease of life as a UK-trained coach is putting together a comprehensive programme aimed at developing the game by unearthing talent especially of children. Sankofa Tete Danso who is based in the United Kingdom is currently in Ghana and says he is determined to change the way the game is played especially at the juvenile level. Under the project, he and other two trainers and a medic – all UK-trained - hope to enlist at least 100 interested persons between the ages of eight and 16 and put them into small groups for two hours intensive training and teaching every Saturday morning. According to Danso, the first training of what he calls small sided football – five vs. five, nine vs. nine and so on, is expected to take place in the first week of June. Such small teams playing in a very controlled environment, Danso believes, maximizes player-trainer interaction and boosts the confidence of the player as well as provides the trainer with an opportunity to properly assess player strengths and weaknesses to be able to give tailored guidance. “More often than not we play our football unsupervised, I mean the local ones we play – the gutter-to-gutter at Mantse Agbona, and areas like that and if you go to Kumasi Akwatia Line and areas like that. When we were all kinds we just went to the street corners and played – we didn’t know warm-ups to tune the body, cool downs, we didn’t know exactly what we were doing which affects how we treat the game and how we progress.” Danso, who is also a radio presenter at Focus FM, UK, said the project “is basically fun football we are getting into but this time with a lot more professional touch.” “You don’t have to be a footballer to join us because we will training from the scratch – handling the ball, controlling, dribbling and we will progress it to them understanding formation, they understanding football and to the extent of them understanding the respect part of the game and even leadership because some of them will definitely becoming out as captains, assistant captains and the like.” He said if the local game is to generate interest and attract the kind of patronage and corporate sponsorship that football is doing elsewhere, there must be a conscious programme to teach young kids the rudiments of the game and the discipline required to succeed. Until that is done, the nation will continue to have this cyclical situation where the senior national team, the Black Stars are doing well, while the junior level and most importantly the local league continuous to be in a moribund state. The Saturday Football project organisers hope to raise a team from Ghana to participate in this year’s football festival in Spain. Lead organizer, Sankofa Danso said the Accra Technical Training College (ATTC) park has been registered for training purposes and trainees will have a medic present during training to administer first aid where necessary. He assured the team will take responsibility for all children during training sessions. Danso told Myjoyonline.com, the head coach of the children’s team of the Crystal Palace Football club in the UK, Graham Web, will be visiting Ghana from time to time to support the project. “We are all British trained, we understand the game …and everything that we have learnt from the English FA we want to impart it here.” The project, he believes, will not only provide an avenue for children to do physical exercises which is good for their health but also sharpen their social skills because they will be meeting with children of varied social and economic backgrounds with whom they will share teams and learn valuable lessons. To be part of the project, parents must pick forms at Busy Internet, Accra Mall or the ATTC, fill out and submit same to the various outlets from where they picked the forms. The selected trainees will be assessed and screened and will have their first training session by the first week of June. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana