Curtain comes down on trio of festivals
THIRTY-EIGHT teams took part in the third KBB Suffolk FA Pre-Season Grassroots Festival.
The third and final festival was held at Walmer Road, home of Kirkley & Pakefield FC, on Sunday.
The festival catered for U7, U8, U9, U10, U11, U12, U13 and U14 teams from Suffolk and Norfolk. The festival provided an end to those participating teams’ pre-season preparations in the north of the county.
The morning session consisted of most of the pitches being played on with the U7 and U8 festival taking place on the first-team pitch, U9 festival on the 3G, U11 on a 9v9 pitch and U13 on an 11v11 pitch.
The afternoon consisted of the U10 festival on the 3G, U12 festival on the 9v9 pitch, with the U14 teams playing on an 11v11 pitch.
Suffolk FA Football Development Officer (Retention) James Morley, who organised the festival, said: “It was great to get back to Walmer Road to run another festival.
“We previously held the first pre-season KBB Suffolk FA Grassroots Festival at Kirkley & Pakefield in 2019, which was a great success with 70 teams participating.
“This festival provided us with a great opportunity to end our pre-season programme strongly and provide more opportunities for teams to enjoy their football in a great environment.
“We couldn’t have asked for better weather across the day with September seeming to have been a good portion of our summer leading up to the festival and the 38 teams enjoyed their day.
“A massive thank you goes to Kirkley & Pakefield FC for all their support and work in the lead up and during the festival to help put on a great event for everyone in attendance. This included the club’s Junior Committee who were great on the day and got involved as much as possible which helped make our jobs easier.”
The festival followed on from those held at Kesgrave High School and The New Croft in Haverhill.
James said: “The festival at Kirkley brought an end to our first ever series of KBB Suffolk FA Pre-Season Grassroots Festivals alongside those at Kesgrave and Haverhill.
“Following the past two seasons being affected due to Covid we wanted to have a strong start to this season by having three festivals across the county to provide a great end to teams’ preparations for the 2021-22 season.
“The three festivals in one month provided a new challenge and evolution to our Grassroots Festival repertoire and we felt they were well received with 167 teams participating across the three festivals.
“We hope that teams will now go on and enjoy an uninterrupted – fingers crossed – 2021-22 season and we will see them at our end-of-season festival next year.”
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