On October 4, Football Victoria (FV) teamed up with SEDA College to connect seniors with the young generation through football.
The FV Walking Football Hub Leaders helped showcase Walking Football and how it keeps seniors active.
Walking Football is a small-sided, low-impact, modified version of the game, suitable for all levels of ability and fitness, with a focus on men and women aged over 55 years.
SEDA College teacher Billy Natsioulas said the day was a “good starting point” for his students and was hopeful the program would grow next year.
“Our students did a bit of research behind senior citizens and their participation in sport. It’s part of a learning unit called the power of sport, where they have to look at minority groups and create some sort of an event to increase participation in that group,” he explained.
“Considering the numbers we had, we would love to speak to all of the hubs and find a day that works, and hopefully get those numbers pumped up next year and get our students planning that real-life event.”
FV hopes the friendship made with SEDA would ignite the young students to learn and think differently when developing a program as part of their learning and it would encourage the participants to be involved as volunteers or casual coaches within our programs or their local seniors community programs.
FV Walking Football Coach, David Bruff was supportive of the work with the school students as it would be another mechanism for the older generation to get involved.
“The program is aimed at anyone who wants to play Walking Football, have two ways of doing it, people who are in U3A (55+) and people who register on the Football Victoria website (any age),”Bruff stated.
“U3A is designed to get older people off their backside, get involved with what is going on, and be sociable, they come here, they can talk to other people and the aim of the game is to get out and have a walk, kick the ball around and the social side of it.”
The students were involved in the planning of the day which consisted of a Walking Football match with the help of two FV coaching staff.
“I think the day was successful because all the games were fair and all the participants were having fun and socialising with the teachers and students,” one of the students said.
Natsioulas said he was hopeful the collaboration that was brought to life through FV Programs Manager, Abraham Abraham could expand in the coming years.
“We would love to (work more with Football Victoria),” he said.
“It would be great to get students there every week, helping the community events, they could be almost like our liaison and do a lot of the planning initially and then bring our class into it once all the minor things have been planned.
“I think in future whether it be senior citizens or special needs, they are probably the two areas we have worked with in the past we would love to work with again.”