An array of colour, smiles and laughter from the school kids that descended on to Lawson Tama made the beautiful Saturday morning brighter than usual.
Close to more than four hundred school children from Lunga in the East to Marara in the West flocked to Lawson Tama Stadium for the official launch of the 2015 Bulk Shop Junior Futsal league. It all started with a colourful uniform parade at 8:30am followed by speeches from officials.
In attendance to witness this spectacle was the newly elected President of the Solomon Islands Football Federation William Lai, SIFF CEO Neil Poloso, the Directors and staff of Bulk Shop as well as parents, teachers and friends and supporters of participating Schools.
Whilst delivering one of the keynote addresses, Lai reiterated that SIFF fully supported the work of SISC more especially in using the FUTSAL platform in its programmes and that surely through such partnership the game of Futsal will reach all communities and villages throughout Solomon Islands.
He also acknowledged the sponsorship of Bulk Shop as well as the continuous support rendered by the Dural Baptist Church of Sydney in ensuring that futsal does continue to grow in Solomon Islands.
Futsal development in Solomon Islands and Honiara in particular has somewhat stalled over the last couple of years due to lack of facilities to cater for the ever growing number of kids aspiring to play futsal, but the timely response by the Bulk Shop to sponsor the 2015 Junior Futsal league as well as the decision by SIFF for the use of Lawson Tama couldn’t be timelier.
President of the Solomon Islands Sports Coalition, Pastor Seru when delivering his opening remarks thanked them all stating it’s truly a blessing for the kids when such corporation is realised and at the end of the day, the real winners will be the children.
The pinnacle of the event came at about 9:30am when Tele Bartlet heralded the official Launch of the 2015 Bulk Shop junior Futsal League, much to the excitement of the school kids who couldn’t hold back their appreciation euphorically in acknowledging such a grand gesture from one of the largest locally owned businesses in the country.
Bartlet added that with more than 20 years of service to the country, there’s no better way to give back to the community than to reach out to the kids through futsal who will be the next generation of leaders.
The theme for this year’s Bulk Shop Junior Futsal league is “Developing Future Leaders through Futsal”
This year’s league will involve around 20 schools within the Honiara City boundary as well Lunga and Marara of Guadalcanal province.
The chairman of the organising committee Mr David Keru revealed that approximately between 400 to 600 kids will be involved in this year’s futsal league for the U10 to U14 categories for both boys and girls and promises to be a very exiting one and is urging parents, teachers, friends and supporters to come out to Lawson Tama every Saturday morning to cheer and support the kids.
He further stated that tentatively the first matches will be played this coming Saturday 16th May 2015 at Lawson Tama stadium starting at 8am till 12pm.
A technical meeting for all sports masters/coaches of schools that have registered for the league has been arranged for Wednesday 13th May 2015 at Lawson Tama starting at 5pm and urged all of them to attend without failure.
Draws and fixtures will be published on the Solomon Star and Island newspapers as well as the SIBC on Friday 15th May 2015.
