Training session at Bureh Beach for the First Gen

This afternoon the older boys went to Bureh Beach for a strength and conditioning session, doing shuttle runs in the soft sand followed by sprinting in and out of the sea.

At the Academy they like to keep the training varied to keep the boys motivated while ensuring their fitness is at the optimum level, plus the boys enjoy it too!

Help needed: Send Umaru Samura to the Milk Cup

Tom and I are asking for your help. We are looking to fundraise to send Umaru Samura, the First Generation Team Captain, to the Dale Farm Milk Cup, a youth football tournament in Northern Ireland.

About the Milk Cup:

The tournament is a prestigious football event that has been running since 1983 and brings together people from all over the world. The large talent pool brings football scouts from around the globe looking for the next big thing. Previous competitors have included David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, Craig Bellamy, Nicky Butt, Joe Cole, Peter Crouch, Jermaine Defoe, Robbie Savage, Danny Wellbeck and Ryan Giggs,  just to name a few. 

For many of our boys this will be their first experience of playing football outside of Africa, and even a first time experience getting on a plane. Not only is this a great opportunity for the boys to make a name for themselves at one of the world biggest youth football tournaments but we are also looking to extend our tour to include a 10 day trip of educational events to enhance their academic studies.

The Craig Bellamy Foundation runs Sierra Leone’s only professional football academy. Operated on a not-for-profit basis, we offer children the opportunity to reach their true potential by nurturing their sporting and academic excellence. Our 1st Generation of CBF Academy boys are now entering the final phase of their scholarship. We cannot get the boys to Northern Ireland without the generous support of Craig Bellamy Foundation friends and followers. £700 is enough to help us get one of our boys to the tournament. This is spent covering the cost of the flights to and from England, and then Northern Ireland, tournament entry costs, accommodation and food for the duration of the trip, internal travel and the educational events we are looking to organise. Its amazing how far that £700 will go.

Umaru's story:

Umaru is a quiet, sweet 15 year old but don't let the quietness fool you; what at first appears to be shyness is actually a steely determination and a maturity way beyond his years. Umaru is an excellent team captain, both on the pitch and around the Academy. He regularly tops the EAD board (Effort, Attainment and Discipline weekly monitoring where the boys are given points depending on their attitude that week) and can always be relied upon to assist in any task.

Umaru is also an extremely talented footballer with a promising career ahead of him. A tricky midfield playmaker with outstanding technical skills, he combines quick feet and an array of deft touches to wriggle out of tight areas. Accomplished as both a box-to-box midfielder or more advanced playmaker, Umaru has the potential to be the difference maker.

One World Futbol Launch

Recently the entire Academy travelled into Freetown for the Launch of One World Futbol in Sierra Leone. Several thousand indestructible footballs have been donated to Sierra Leone and the government has allocated 7000 to CBF. This is fantastic news for the CBF League and the footballs will shortly be distributed out to the teams.
As part of the Launch a presentation day was held at the National Stadium. As usual the first several hours were taken up with a parade, a lot of waiting around and what felt like severe hundred speeches but eventually the football games began.

There were adult teams, premier league teams, the CBF boys, disabled teams and particularly impressively the Ladies police team played the Ladies army team.

The CBF boys played for about 30 minutes and actually lost 1-0 but it was great for them to play at the National Stadium.

Early morning preacher man - AKA The Sermonator...

We have a new friend at the Academy. I’ve not met him personally but he talks to me at least twice a week.. at 4.30 in the morning, usually accompanied by loud gospel music. 

It would appear that a local preacher has suddenly come into some funds and is now preaching the word of God to all of Tombo at 4.30am, usually lasting until about 6.30am. 

It may just be a coincidence, my cynical mind is inclined to disagree, but the over exuberant sermon tends to coincide with the local mosques call to prayer most mornings, and is certainly set at a volume to drown it out. Risky move considering the majority of the population are Muslim here.

The pastor accompanies his sermon with a personal good morning to CBF, while I appreciate the sentiment I’d rather he didn't wake me up to say good morning as it’s awfully hard to get back to sleep once he starts, particularly as he wakes the kittens up too and then they decide it is time to play.

The almost hilarious thing is that the church the sermon is coming from is nowhere near the Academy itself - its a good 5-10 minute walk away so I dread to think how loud it is for the people that live close by. I am hoping this is a passing phase and will soon disappear, I will keep you all posted but so far it’s not looking good!

Oh and I have forgotten to mention that his Sunday morning sermons are preceded with an all night party in Tombo as well so you count your lucky stars if you get any sleep on a Saturday night!!

I originally wrote this post at the end of January and since then the situation has only got worse. Now we get to endure the sound check the night before as well and the length of the sermons appears to be increasing. Not sure how much more the staff here can stand to be honest, if it was only once a week it wouldn't be so bad but its at least three times - more if he has the money for generator fuel. Or I need to buy some noise reducing comfortable headphones. 

Sadly we have tried to reason with him, several members of staff have gone to speak to him with little success so far.

Blue House Swimming

From left to right: Emmanuel, Rodney, ABK, Brima, Baillor, Fatta, Joseph Sam and Suli (Mohai was in the UK)

One of the local hotels, Eden Park, has kindly agreed to allow us the use of their pool on a weekly basis to take the kids from the Academy swimming. This is a great exercise for the House Teams to strengthen their bond and good for the kids that aren't so great at swimming to boost their confidence. Dave, my fellow House Captain, and I, took the Blue House swimming for the first time a few weekends ago. 
The boys were super excited to go on a House day out, particularly as the Blue House tend to get on very well and we have done several house activities in the past. Unfortunately we were missing Mohai as he was in the UK having knee surgery on a torn tendon from an injury I witnessed on my first visit out here last year. Despite everyone being so excited it took several attempts to get everyone in the vehicle and ready to go! For boys whose every move throughout the day runs to a timetable they are ridiculously disorganised when it comes to social activities.

Eventually we managed to set off and drive the ten minutes down the coast to Eden Park. The hotel resort is set at the edge of Mama Beach, a small community right on the water. The hotel has its own entrance and is far enough down the other end of the beach from the village that you rarely see more than a few people there so its nice and private. 

The chalets and main bar are set in woodland allowing a decent amount of dappled shade and helping to keep the temperature down in the heat of the day. The pool itself is set up on a raised platform behind the main bar, slightly away from the beach. Luckily for our non swimmers there is a shallow end and a deep end so everybody was able to have a turn.

The main idea of the morning is to allow the houses some time as a group away from the Academy doing something different so we mostly allowed the boys time to relax and have fun in the water but we also want to improve confidence and prepare the non swimmers for their swimming lessons later on in the year. There is a rubber ring available so we played a couple of games where the boys would swim into to deep end to reach the rubber ring and rest before swimming back to the shallow end. For those that cannot swim we taught them to hold onto to ring and practice kicking their legs to propel themselves around the pool. For one of the boys, Joseph Sam, who is particularly scared of the water I spent quite some time practicing floating with him and him being comfortable putting his head in the water.