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The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) Grassroots Festival for children 6-11 years old moved into La Brea yesterday with a three-hour coaching clinic at the La Brea Recreation Ground.

There was a buzz around the venue as close to 100 youngsters from six primary schools and coaching schools in the area assembled to take part in the second edition of the grassroots festival which commenced last weekend at Green Park, Felicity in Chaguanas. 

There are 30 sessions scheduled to take place at various venues within the six regional associations under the TTFA between May and August. 

Children are being taught the basics of the game with an emphasis on player participation and enjoyment as coaches, who have all been trained by the TTFA coaching instructors and been part of the recent TTFA/CONCACAF Grassroots coaching course, are utilised to guide the youngsters during the sessions. 

TTFA Technical Director Muhammad Isa spoke about the positive turnout yesterday. 

“The participation level both here and in Felicity last weekend has been promising. Of course you always want to have more players involved but so far we have seen a lot of enthusiasm and the kids have been having fun which is the most important objective of this grassroots festival,” Isa told TTFA Media. 

“I am satisfied with the progress and happy that the coaches have gotten the kids from the community to come out. There are a series of technical drills and game activities taking place. The zones will continue to have the grassroots activities and our concern from the TTFA is to see what talent we can identify between the six to 11 age group that we can now pick up and continue to nurture,” he added. One of the grassroots coaches, Kendall Crawford from the southern football association observed that there were youngsters with good technical ability on show. 

“So far we have all the kids engaged and the enthusiasm level is very high and we have seen a number of them who have shown technical promise and we have bodies of various types. This is where it all starts… at the grassroots level. If we don’t get them into the right structure from early then we are going to run into problems later down the road. “In Felicity last week there was also a good turnout with strong showing from the kids and we are definitely hoping to push on with this type of progress in each of the zones,” Crawford added. 

The next grassroots session will take place at the Blanchisseuse Recreation Ground on Saturday from 9am.