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Stars, skills and soccer gear delivered to outback communities

20 April 2004 - Australian Sports Commission Media release - National Soccer coach Frank Farina and Olympic squad members Fred Agius and Belinda Dawney are this week helping to teach outback kids the joys of soccer. This is an initiative of the Indigenous Sport Program and Laureus Sport for good Foundation-funded Soccer in the Outback tour in north-west Queensland.

Indigenous Sport Program (ISP), National Manager Glen Brennan said that a highlight of the tour will be when Farina hands out Australian team uniforms to participants.

‘These are ex training and playing uniforms used when the Socceroos played Uruguay during the 2002 World Cup qualifying campaign that the Australian Soccer Association has kindly donated to help inspire these kids,’ Mr Brennan said.

The tour is part of the regular Soccer in the Outback program. The Australian coach and players will join Soccer Queensland’s manager for remote, isolated and Indigenous communities, Natalie Cardwell. The tour is travelling from Mt Isa to Boulia today 20 April and on to Dajarra tomorrow.

The program not only helps transfer skills to the communities, it also helps train coaches and officials as well as assisting to develop infrastructure in the communities such as grass playing fields and lighting. Soccer in the Outback is a partnership between the ISP, the Australian Soccer Association and Queensland Soccer to provide opportunities for people in rural and remote areas to develop new skills and enjoy all the benefits and social aspects of a team sport.

Olympic under-23 squad member Agius, who heads to Tunisia on Saturday, travelled to the communities in 2000 and Cardwell said they would be welcomed with open arms.

‘The kids still ask about him each time I visit, so it will be great to have him come back and see how much they have improved,’ Mrs Cardwell said.

The tour highlights the work of the Australian Government, through the Australian Sports Commission’s (ASC) Indigenous Sport Program, in increasing the quality and quantity of sporting opportunities for Indigenous Australians, especially in rural and remote areas.

The ISP has worked in partnership with the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation since 2001 and the latest grant is helping to expand the work of Hockey Australia and the Australian Soccer Association in the far western and northern areas of Queensland.

Source: Australian Sports Commission

Indigenous Soccer Players Come From All Over Australia

20 October 2003 - Thirty-five highly skilled Indigenous male and female soccer players have been selected for the Historic Indigenous Youth Soccer Tour to Europe and the U.K. After just completing a ten-day fitness, skill development, training and selection camp at Stradbroke Island. The players were selected from hundreds of enquires received from all over Australia.

The selection camp was organised by the Australian Indigenous Soccer Association, which was formed by Mr. David Saunders. He said that "kids in the rural and remote communities were not getting the opportunity to advance their soccer careers, some players were often chosen in regional teams and often travelled to play for state selected teams but were often disadvantaged with distance and training schedules. There is so much unnoticed talent in those communities that we wanted to give the youth that opportunity. Originally I wanted a team of about twenty young men but with many responses from female Soccer Players, we had to quickly accommodate a female team as well".

Many parents have been excited that we can now have some future planning to help these children, "we need has many role models as we can in our communities and Soccer is played everywhere" said one of the parents.

The Australian Indigenous Soccer Association will seek to create and work with each state. To have regional competitions in remote areas, inviting teams to regional events, then selecting state and National Squads, but don' t get me wrong we don't want to create a whole new layer. We want to integrate into the mainstream tournaments and have players maintain loyalties to there own clubs, we just need to give these players more opportunities, more match time and carve a process that will understand their needs and their dreams to be successful. Our constitution clearly states that we will seek to link into all Soccer Associations, all soccer clubs and to all Indigenous and remote players.

Over the ten days the teams played four matches against mostly division one under 17 teams, and with less than two days training held there main game to a nil all draw. "You would swear that they had been playing together for years, they just all clicked together and where so proud to be in a complete Indigenous team Murri's playing along side Koori's, Noongars and Torres Strait Islanders.

National Indigenous Youth squads Selected to tour Europe

The aim of this selection camp says Mr Saunders "is to take the both teams male and female to Germany to attend a four week training and playing tour in Europe and the U.K. The camp was the first of its kind with the local Brisbane based Regents Park Soccer Club hosting the camp whilst the newly formed Australian Indigenous Soccer Association is being incorporated.

Without the assistance of the Regents Park Soccer Club and their committee, we would never have gotten started. The club has aided with administration, equipment and worked tirelessly to see that all players have been given an opportunity to attend the selection camp. Coaches and fitness trainers where supplied by the Football Management Group, who will organise the overseas tour.

The final team selected has players from Port Headland, Perth, Broken Hill, Melbourne, Adelaide Longreach, Nowra, Newcastle, Canberra, N.T, Toowoomba, Grafton, Rockhampton, Brisbane and Ipswich to name a few areas. The teams have true National coverage and all players will be seen as role models for the communities.

We have just scratched the surfaced today. The players selected for the tour worked hard, played well and with the techniques they will gain from being trained and playing in Europe will give them the greatest start to further their soccer careers. Who knows who will see these players in Europe, some of them have skills that will see them match the big league players from around the world. The timing is now for these young players who will be seeking to have greater opportunities for selection to future National Sides, with the next World Cup only three years away.

Many other Indigenous soccer players could not make the camp, with their remoteness and financial struggles due to isolation and lack of employment and any financial assistance. For these players, we will lay the foundations to give assistance and take training camps into their communities, this is where the Australian Indigenous Soccer Association will focus over the next few years. We plan to take teams to the Kanga Cup in 2004, and then to Holland in 2005 for the Danna Cup the biggest youth soccer tournament in the world.

Sponsors are still being sought as the need to maintain the enthusiasm and the pride of these all ready selected players to reach their dreams is only just begun.

So if there is a sponsor out there who would like to provide sponsorship for the tour and the Association could you please contact us to discuss the package. It would be a shame if sponsorship cannot be found to give these youth the opportunity, as these young Indigenous sports people could soon be trying to become the 'cream of the crop'. Full team naming rights are available for both team's the Boomerang's (boys) and the Woomera's (girls).

Source: ABC

Another Aussie rep produced by Dubbo

2 December 2003

Following in the footsteps of former Dubbo players Daniel Bateup and Adrian Liejer, 17-year-old Fox will go on a playing and coaching tour to Europe and the United Kingdom during March and April next year.

Fox will be tutored by top German coaches, play against teams in Germany, Holland and the UK and see top European matches. The team was selected after a 10-day camp in late September and early October on the Gold Coast with 48 players trying out.

Players had to submit resumes and references before they were offered an invitation to attend the camp.

Fox, who attends Dubbo College Senior Campus, is blessed with natural talent, vision and ball skills plus the ability to use both feet and is strong in the air. He started playing at age six for PCYC and has moved through the ranks of several clubs and representative teams.

He has played for Dubbo City Rangers and SASS as well as representing Dubbo, Western New South Wales, New South Wales Country and has been a member of the Western Soccer Academy. Further to this Fox has his junior coaching licence and has assisted in many coaching clinics including school holiday camps.

Fox's selection follows on from Bateup and Leijer as well as Blayney junior Nathan Burns who is in the NSW Institute of Sport and Aaron Downes of Mudgee who is in the Australian Institute of Sport.

With the months ticking away he is busy working and mixing his studies with fundraising for the tour.

Source: Dubbo News

Fred Agius

• Named in the starting line-up for the first match of the current under-17 Joey’s side. He tallied nothing short of six goals against American Samoa. 1998-South Australia Institute of Sport scholarship holder, Indigenous Sport Program (ISP) scholarship holder
• 1999 - National Soccer Championships, South Australia Institute of Sport scholarship holder, ISP scholarship holder 2000 - South Australia Institute of Sport, U17 Australian Identification Camp, ISP scholarship holder
• 2001 - Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder, U17 Australian Team (competed at World Cup 2001), ISP scholarship holder
• Junior Sportsman of the Year, 2001, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Sports Awards

Harry Williams

• The only previous Aboriginal soccer star to play for Australia.
• Harry Williams was born in Sydney, NSW. In 1951 he began playing Soccer at the age of nine with St George Police Boy's Club.
• In 1970 he was picked for the national side that went on a world tour. He was a brilliant left back with tremendous acceleration. In the mid 1980's he was still running professionally.
• He played for St George and for Canberra City between 1970- 1980. He represented Australia in 17 matches in these years.
• Harry Williams also played in six World Cup Matches for Australia.

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