Last season for the Dartford District primary schools representative team was one of change and progression.
For the first time in district football history Dartford ran two representative teams, reached a cup final, had three players selected in Kent Schools u11 squad and crucially started development groups in school years 1-5 which saw us working with players on a weekly basis providing them with quality coaching through support from the Kent FA Skills Coaches while preparing and developing players and parents understanding of representative schools football. Our new year six squad is very strong and we hope to win a trophy during the coming season.
Since 2011 when district football was relaunched by FA Skills Coach Darren Phillips with the support of Holy Trinity assistant headteacher Gemma Gold, Dartford Pre Academy director Phil Murray and Dartford FC Coach & District Manager Darren Corley it has gone from strength to strength. Of our 26 primary schools only six nominated players for season 2011/12, at the start of season 2014/15 that had increased to 23 schools.
During the coming school year all twenty six schools will be offered free coaching support, with all year five pupils being given the opportunity to impress for the girls and boys district squads for season 2016/17.
We will continue to run our weekly district development groups on Mondays for years 3/4 and Fridays for years 2/5 we aim to accommodate upto thirty-two players in each age group, of course they must all attend a Dartford primary school. Our new year 1 group will start in the near future and we have entered a girls team in the new girls district “super league”.
Dartford FC will again host the annual schools tournament in October, we hope to see 26 boys teams and 26 girls teams in attendance, the winning Dartford schools will progress on to represent Dartford in the Kent schools champions cup. This year we will be looking for a sponsor for the tournaments, the facilities we are able to use at Dartford FC are fantastic and the organisation by Phil Murray and his Dartford coaches is first class.
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