A group of teenage girls is the first in Ireland to complete a Transition Year football course, which is believed to have a positive effect for thousands of young people and their participation in sport.
Fingal County Council has been running a TY Course for boys with the FAI since 2016, this is the first year that it has run a course for girls, with 25 taking part.
Denis Hyland, manager of the FAI Transition Year Courses, said: “It give the kids an opportunity to live the life of a footballer for the year, it’s a real mix of football and education.
“So the three main pillars are player development, education and role model in the community.”
The course is based at the FAI centre on the Sports Ireland Campus in Abbotstown, where participants train to work on their football skills and strength and conditioning five days a week from September to May.
It is the only programme in Ireland where young footballers, under 18, get to work on their skills full time.
They also keep up with their school work and learn about nutrition, sports psychology, gym instruction and communication skills.
They also learn how to coach football and that feeds into one of the most important parts of the course, where they act as role models in their local communities.
Gerry Reardon, Principal Sports Officer for Fingal County Council, says that the council “sees the multiplier effect immediately”.
“The boys and girls once they receive their coaching qualifications, their coaching in local schools, they’re also coaching in their local club’s academies,” he said.
“We see that as a really strong positive role model, inspiring kids to stay in sport to try and replicate these guys they see at an elite level; hopefully that’s retaining in kids in sport. We see that as really, really vital.”
While participation in sport drops off for all genders when they get to their teenage years, the problem is far more acute amongst girls.
The TY students have been going out to coach in their old primary schools every Wednesday.
“We had a course here to teach us how to do that and then we went back with the material that we learnt, and I think everybody really enjoyed that,” says Freya Healy from Kildare.
Fellow TY student, Olivia Meehan from Swords, agrees.
“It’s amazing, I love going out. I’ve been out to my old primary school. It’ a gaelscoil so I enjoy coaching through Irish and I think the kids enjoy it as well.”
Keith O’Halloran is a coordinator on the girls TY course and says the life skills and leadership experience gained on the course will stand to the girls wherever life takes them.
“They’re not all going to be footballers going forward. These are future councillors, could be presidents. They could be anything in terms of the football side of it or anything within in the country.”
The course does have an impressive record for bringing on footballers, with Mr Hyland saying that many of the boys are now playing professionally.
“We have a player playing in every league in England and Ireland and Scotland, that’s been on the course,” he said.
“And certainly this year the inaugural year of the girls’ course, we’ve had 12 girls playing international football an one, Freya Healy, who was called into the international senior team earlier, which is fantastic for the course in the first year.”
