Just before lockdown Queen of Angels were very fortunate to be the first participants in the Stephanie Roche Football Coaching Internal Schools Blitz which was held at the famous St. Joseph’s AFC grounds in Sallynoggin.
When the players arrived, they were shown into one of the spacious dressing rooms where their new JAKO kit was laid out for them around the room.
Before the tournament got underway Will Clarke, Director of Football Operations at St. Joseph’s made a small presentation to Mr. McIlvenna, to commemorate the school’s first visit to the club.
When the games got going there were goals and skills a plenty. Each player got to play 5 matches. This exciting format saw the teams changed after each round, with points being awarded for wins, draws and goals scored. When the points were tallied at the end, Adam Scott Daly was the overall winner. Emma Jones took the prize for the highest placed 5th class player. Both Adam and Emma were presented with football shirts by Ireland international Stephanie Roche.
The players were then brought on a tour of the club’s facilities, including the all-weather training areas and the boardroom. Along the way they saw shirts lining the walls of former players who went on to play professionally or play for Ireland. One such shirt was that of Ross Zambra son of our Football Coach Garry, who played all his schoolboy football for St. Joseph’s and was capped 10 times for Ireland in Futsal. When the tour concluded the players reluctantly prepared to make their return to school. This proved to be a wonderful, fun filled eperience for all involved and hopefully there will be more such events with SRFC in the future.
The lucky ones who represented the school that day were:
Tadgh Rodgers, Finn Rodgers, Adam Scott Daly, Mortada Yakoubi, Tadzio Anczura, Jaread Hogg, Scott Jones, Keiron Makila, Emma Jones, Patrick Leckie, Liam Mikisa, Noah Quinn and Brian Iwuaba
Garry Zambra