Bath Primary Schools Football AssociationUnder 11's / 12's Copenhagen January 09
The 2008/2009 season saw our upper school age groups travel to Holland, Copenhagen and Ireland. Below are various reports and tales from our experiences:
Under 11/12s Copenhagen Jan 2009
By Max O Leary
Dec 30th 2008 - Tuesday
The team met at Bath for a run through of the training session we were going to do at the conference with Tim. We had to repack our bags, went into Bath for lunch and then drove in convoy to the travel lodge in Stansted – it was freezing! Tim then had meetings with all of us and we had to go to bed early because of the early start.
Dec 31st 2008 - Wednesday
We arrived in Copenhagen and we were knackered after the 4 o'clock wake up!! Flemming, Frederick and some of the Copenhagen parents and players met us at the airport. They took our bags whilst we went to our accommodation by train. Everyone was freezing because of the temperatures (0 C) but at least the trains were warm and on-time!
When we got there we went and saw FC Copenhagen's training pitches, also we went to the sports hall and had a light training session. After showers we went for food and then prepared to stay up all night for the new year! It did not quite work out though as after cards and watching Batman, most of us fell asleep despite the millions of fireworks going off around us – it was like a war zone! Ted, Roger and Paul stayed up all night talking rubbish and familiarising themselves with someone called Carlsberg.
Jan 1st 2009 -Thursday
When we woke up it was 2009! We had breakfast and then got ready for our match against FC Skjold Copenhagen. We got a promising result winning 3-1. It was the first time the team had played together for a while and we did well playing first 9-a-side and then 11-a-side. Dan Demkiv scored as well as Jake Andrews, and Kailan completed the scoring with a close range effort.
The parents of the opposition came back to the school with us and while they cooked us all a meal we played the Danish boys indoors…and won again!
The meal was great and then we played games with the coaches including get the pencil in the bottle and doing something weird with bits of string!
Jan 2nd 2009- Friday
After cleaning up the school we moved to our next accommodation which was at KIES where the conference was being held. Flemming and Frederick then took us for a trip around Copenhagen. It was freezing cold at -8 C and luckily it snowed a bit.
We had a buffet lunch in the town and I even had smoked salmon - my favourite! We visited the Queen’s Palace and had photos with the guards and tried to make him laugh!
The security were not too happy though! We then gave Chay the bumps for his 11th birthday and quickly headed back to the warmth of KIES – it was so cold! We went back and relaxed, watching DVDs. Tim thought we needed to relax, so he fell asleep in front of the DVD while we played indoor football.
That evening we had a game against FC Brondy who are known as the strongest team in the area at U12 level. It was a tight game and an excellent football match with the sides playing intelligently and keeping the ball on the floor. It ended 3-3 with James Barnes, Daniel Demkiv and Alfie Kilgour scoring. Dan could have scored another couple but he has not learned the offside rule at Southampton yet…
Jan 3rd 2009 - Saturday
Today was the start of the Copenhagen International Football Congress and Tim trained us in the dome and loads of people watched. We did lots of different things some individual skills and some small sided games. It was a good session and we all enjoyed it in front of all the people watching.
It was a busy day as we then had a game against Hvidovre IF and we lost 3-2. We started well and the passing was good, showing the Bath schools’ skill. It was 2-2 but in the last quarter we didn’t finish our chances and they ended up scoring to win the match. Scorers this time were me and Zak!
Although we were pretty tired, we were also then excited to have a coach from Real Madrid train us. He spoke good English, he was strict but also funny. We did a one touch drill and a shooting exercise where most of us eventually were able to find the target!
We got back quite late and all slept really well.
By the sound of the noise by the adults, they did not sleep very much as they had invited their friend Carlsberg back again.
Jan 4th - Sunday
We packed up and headed off for our last session at the congress - with the Chelsea coach. The session was on defending and we had to take part in lots of game situations...the defence won!!
Feeling pretty tired, we then gave our luggage to the Danish parents and we headed off empty handed to the airport on the train – travelling in style! Our flight was delayed an hour but it gave us a chance to spend all our money on the things we were not allowed during the tour – Haribo and chocolate! (Kailan had 20 hot dogs)
It was a really busy tour but a fantastic way to start the year. We all played some great football, had some top class coaching (especially from the Bristol City coach!) and enjoyed our stay in Denmark.
Thanks to Tim, Paul, Roger and Ted for taking us and giving us such a good time!