K.C.F.C. - News!!

 

SFA Study group to Denmark 

This was my project.   Full report to follow    Steve

Leonardo Da Vinci Visit--- Denmark 2010

Friday 7 th May pm visit to TARNBY local grassroots club :- S Wilson

 

Tarnby Football club has a long history dating back to 1917 during which time various links with other local clubs have been tried over the years. Most didn’t work out and Tarnby ended up on its own again but a strong link with Aarmaar took place around 1970 and finally in 2009, AB TARNBY 2009 was formed with Tarnby FC and Aarmaar FC losing their own identities.

 

 

With 55000 people in the community there are 4 or 5 football clubs in the area but with 1400 playing members, Tarnby are rated as the 5 th biggest club in Denmark and have activities for all age groups from U5s mini kickers up to the grand old masters at over 65s.

The facilities are first class, the clubhouse, meeting rooms and restaurant building is adjoined by numerous pitch areas, astro pitches and 2 stadium pitches for the first teams.

 

Including the “west “ area which is across the road from the clubhouse there are approx 8 11-a-side, 8 7-a-side, numerous 5-a- side and fun areas plus the floodlit astro and 2 stadia . Pitches are allocated free of charge to the member teams and training is allowed on the pitches. With so many members and other sports competing for the facilities this pitch allocation process can have its problems, but times, days etc are submitted and decisions made. The facilities are owned by the local community council and maintained by them. Any improvements , alterations etc have to be agreed by the council and carried out by them when the budget allows rather than the club just getting on with it and this can be frustrating.

Having 1400 players, it requires a large number of volunteers to keep things going and this can be a problem at times. Parents are asked to become involved when their kids are an early age, come and coach for fun, then maybe later on some will take coach education courses which are arranged locally. Parents info packs give basic induction information, then a simple manual of 10 drills is handed out to them to give them something to start on.

The age groups play as follows 5/6 3 v 3, 7-9 5 v 5, 10/11 7 v 7, 12/13 9 v 9, 14 upwards 11 v 11. From 5/6 to U10 (2000) its fun football playing with their pals and parents coaching. From 11 upwards they get a proper coach to work with the parents, he takes the A team but keeps an eye on B C or D teams. Proper coaching is introduced and at Tarnby this coach moves up the years with the team, but this is not stipulated as a must in Denmark The coaches are looked after by the club, particularly by way of coach education courses which are not cheap in Denmark .By the time the kids reach U14 level they think about 70% of boys are playing football with a grassroots club or better, a fantastic statistic.

As well as providing the facilities free of charge, the council offer funding for every member under the age of 25, at a rate of 125 kroner per year-about £15. The club also has its yearly membership fees which range from 1600 k (£200) for adults, 1200 for 19-14s, 1000 for 11-13s and 600 for the youngsters. The parents don’t need to join but can be active on the kids membership even having voting rights on behalf of the child up to the age of 18’

Tarnby is on the outskirts of Copenhagen and by our standards the facilities are excellent but further West say in Jutland the clubs are even better looked after. A town of 25000 population has an indoor pool, indoor football ,21 grass pitches, hotel accommodation and they are building a new astro . Lots of money available for sport in the West of Denmark

As players progress, the good players are poached by the bigger licensed clubs but this is taken as a fact of life in Denmark and to some extent encouraged because the development of a player is a top priority for them. Tarnby’s most famous son is Nicolas Bentner now with Arsenal who left the club before he was 12 but still comes back and has his own soccer camp as well as being a beneficiary of the club.

Conclusion: - Although the facilities and organisation of the club were outstanding, it was in some way refreshing to see that at grassroots level they do still have minor problems to sort out—allocation of pitches, training times, volunteer recruitment etc, but with everything Danish apparently geared up to a healthy/sporting existence, these are soon sorted.

We as community clubs in Scotland can not change societies habits and attitude to sport and healthy living, but we can pick a few pointers in encouraging parental involvement, providing information and education and inviting more kids to participate. Without the kids playing there is no club so we need to improve player recruitment, monitoring, development and lastly identifying the elite player in our midst and giving him the opportunity to progress. Ghua !!