Friday 12th January saw the Launch Day for the 2018 FA People’s Cup, with BBC Get Inspired and we were one of 7 teams invited to St. George’s Park, to represent one of the 18 categories who had previously taken part in the Competition.
The Event included specialist 5 a-side coaching activities, from FA Coaches, such as 1 kick penalties and learning about your “insurance” player, to name a couple. We were also given a tour of the National Football Centre, where we were shown the carpet like pitch that’s used for the England teams, as well as the other amazing facilities.
We were also involved in some filming for the BBC1 South East News programme (you can see the piece 24 mins. in: https://t.co/vcBt50wTVc ) as well as a live interview for BBC Sussex with Les Howie, the FA’s Head of Grassroots and interviews with The FA. It was all a bit of a nice surprise when we arrived, as we just thought we were going for the coaching! To be able to talk to the FA and the BBC about the Crawley Old Girls and the growth of Women’s Recreational Football, so far, was great and to hear just how much we were inspiring others was very humbling.
8 COGs took in all the different coaching sessions and ended up having a go at the Skills Challenge that had already been completed by Jesse Lingard, Harry Maguire and Jack Butland. Suffice to say we didn’t get anywhere near their scores but there were some impressive celebrations! This is how it should be done…. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/get-inspired/42577256
The day ended with some fun and some would say a simple task, to lift the ball over the cameraman. Of course this didn’t go to plan and laughter ensued. You will see why when you watch this clip! https://youtu.be/RNOki0QVWH8
After all the laughter we were challenged to have a go at a serious photo and for all of 10 seconds it seemed to work! Cue hilarious laughter immediately the camera stopped clicking.
We had a day to remember and would like to thank the FA, BBC Get Inspired and SGP for looking after us so well.
With the launch of the People’s Cup also came the airing of the FA’s TV advert to encourage more people to enter this FREE amateur Competition.
We were extremely lucky to be asked to participate in the filming of the advert too which can be seen on all the TV channels from 11th January to 25th January. Read more here:
http://www.thefa.com/news/2018/jan/12/crawley-old-girls-fa-peoples-cup-promo-120118
It’s been a great couple of days!
If you want to enter a team into the People’s Cup and you’re not sure what to do, all the details are here: http://www.thefa.com/competitions/the-fa-peoples-cup