In the same week that Central F.C. retained the First Citizen’s Cup when they battled to a 1-0 victory over North East Stars, the California based club announced their latest ground breaking event.
Central F.C., in conjunction with Special Olympics TT will be hosting a Unified Football Training Course from 7th- 9th November at UWI (SPEC). The course is designed to introduce football coaches to the more specialised field of coaching special needs athletes.
“We always wanted Central F.C. to be a totally inclusive club and we felt that differently-abled athletes were not given enough support. “ said Central F.C. Managing Director, Brent Sancho. “Some of the programmes that we would like to arrange will require specialised coaching and we discovered that there just isn’t enough of these coaches in T&T”
The course, which is a international Special Olympic mandate, will be part classroom theory and part training field practical coaching. The course is geared towards fostering an atmosphere of inclusion, rather than condescendingly treating the athletes as being “limited” or “special”. “While we accept as a club that perhaps these footballers may never represent our senior team, maybe one day we can take a unified team overseas to play some matches. And, of course, everyone can be a Sharks supporter!” added Sancho Sancho said that the original plan was to bring over a specialised coaching team from an English Premier League club. But one of the conditions of the visit was the provision of coaches versed in this specialised field.
”When we realised that there was a shortage of specialised coaches, we could have simply given up. But that’s not the Central F.C. way. We saw a need and decided to rectify it.” said the former Soca Warrior.
There are a limited number of places available and anyone interested in joining the course, which is free, can contact the Central FC Differently-Abled Inclusion Manager, Amiel Mohammed at marketing.centralfc@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, Sancho said that Central F.C. do not intend to rest now that they have secured the season’s first major title. “Every game is a cup final for us” said Sancho “We have an important game against Police this week. We’ve played 5 games in 15 days and the intensity doesn’t help injury recovery. However, that’s the price of success and with venues being a constant source of difficulty, we have to rely on a strong squad to see us through.”
But, with one trophy in the cabinet and the club sitting on top of the Pro League, The Sharks seem to be hungrier than ever.
