‘It’s just grown and grown’ – football camp sees biggest numbers yet
World Cup theme inspires over 100 bairns to sign up for week-long summer sessions
YOUNG footballers have flocked to a visiting coaching camp, with more bairns than ever before taking part.
Coaches from the BGK Academy have visited Shetland for the past five years, growing from a goalkeeping camp originally to now a full week of training, games and fun for all players.
This year’s World Cup theme – and the much coveted replica World Cup trophy – inspired the largest group of players yet, with 114 people signing up to take part.
When Shetland News visited on Friday afternoon, the lottery of a penalty shoot-out was needed to decide one age group – with an unusual outcome, team Scotland winning.
Coach Calum Brodie has been coming to Shetland for half a decade now, and has watched the numbers steadily growing every time they return.
But even he was surprised with the massive response this year, which saw him have to draft in extra local coaches at late notice.
“It’s been brilliant,” he told Shetland News. “Every time we come up here it just gets better and better.
“The community up here is why we keep coming back, and why we want to come back.”
“I feel part of the community really, and it’s such a good community for sports in general.”
It was clear the esteem the BGK coaches were held in after the camp concluded, with many bairns and parents sticking around to speak to Brodie and his team, or to take photos with them.
One of the highlights of the session was a Norwegian viking row from the bairns, as popularised by the country’s football team and its fans, with players seemingly nailing their colours to the mast before Norway faces England in the World Cup.
Brodie said that the first time they came to Shetland they had around 45 folk sign up, specifically for goalkeeper training.
With BGK now offering both morning sessions for all players – and afternoon sessions for keepers – he says their numbers have continued to steadily rise.
“Almost all of our success has been because of word of mouth,” he said.
“With this, you get found out very quickly if you’re not doing it for the right reasons. It’s just grown and grown now.”
The camps have evolved and now return in the school holidays, rather than just the summer, and Brodie said it had been clear that there had been a demand for more in Shetland.
“We know all the kids, and it’s great to see them develop over the months.
“We get people coming up and saying, ‘I’ve not been playing well recently, how can I fix that?’ And then we can work on it with them.”
He paid special tribute to the sporting facilities in Shetland, saying it was “wild” how good they were compared to some of those on the mainland.
And he said some of the facilities were more of the quality that elite athletes would use, pointing at the indoor 60:40 as one example.
Bairns attending the World Cup camp have been given a lot of information on how to improve their game, but Brodie emphasised the sessions had been designed to be enjoyed.
“We made it a lot more fun this time,” he said.
“The kids have just loved it. We’ve done a morning half-hour session inside looking at game intelligence or psychology, but we’ve picked an iconic player and looked at why they’re so good.
“So we looked at [Lionel] Messi, [Kylian] Mbappe and Andy Robertson.
“For the goalies, we focused on guys like [Guillermo] Ochoa, [Emiliano] Martinez and Ederson.”
He said the World Cup camp was the most children they’ve had “by far”, and said he was glad they had been able to accommodate them all.
“I’ve never wanted to turn kids away and thankfully we’ve not had to do that,” he said.
“At the last minute we had a big rush, but we were able to get more local coaches in to help.”
Brodie promised that BGK Academy will be back in October, ready to catch up with old friends and to make plenty more.
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