June
September
Eastend sink Bankies to clinch Regional cup.
Early strike clinches cup glory for Rossvale.
Linwood 13’s fend out Hoops to secure
Scottish and Regional cup double in first
year at 11’s.
Accies clinch treble after hard fought
victory over Mojams.
Shawlands do double at school girls finals at
Toryglen.
Comeback kings Barrhead clinch Regional
trophy for 2nd year running.
St Peters gun down Gunners to be crowned
Regional champions.
Westpark lift Regional cup to clinch the
season double.
Barrhead grabbed a point from Gers with a
late penalty.
Rangers run riot against Hamilton in last
eight.
Glasgow Amateurs stun 21’s champs with
hard fought win away to the Glens.
boost in the form of a £10,000 grant from
Women’s Fund for Scotland
SYFA West proved too strong for their
Aussie opposition as they won 4-0 against
Melbourne Football Stars.
OctobER
Bonnyton snatch last gasp winner to stun
out of sort champions Rutherglen.
November
Rangers SABC put four goals past Kilsyth
Athletic to progress in Scottish Cup
-Glasgow Girls FC received a financial
CLUB
PROFILE
Words by Ford McGhee
Blantyre Soccer Academy is
growing and continuing to achieve
its goals since being established
just three years ago.
Blantyre has always been proud of its football heritage
having many clubs inside and in the surrounding areas
team like Blantyre Victoria, Blantyre Celtic etc. But in 2010
there was a huge change in the community of Blantyre,
in a footballing sense, when Blantyre Boys Club changed
into Blantyre Soccer Academy solely
at the 2003 age group. This would
spark a bright future for the people
of Blantyre interested in the sport.
Since being founded back in 2010
Blantyre Soccer Academy now
currently works with over 280 young
people and the age range of this cohort
spans from 3 years of age through to
11 years of age. They also have an Under 19 and Amateur
team which provides a full player pathway for The Academy.
The Academy strives to promote positive living,
nutrition, discipline and exercise and instill in young
people the advantages of a healthy lifestyle. It also seeks
to provide young people with positive role models and
regularly invites successful sports persons to visit young
people so as to encourage them to participate in the
diversionary and positive activities promoted by the club.
I recently got the chance to talk to Mary Sneddon who
is part of the new Under 19’s set up within the academy
and asked her how her and the team on a whole were
liking life being part of the academy and how they as a
team wanted to build for the future and she told me:
“We are really enjoying being part of the academy,
everyone has been very welcoming. The academy as
a whole want its own facilities and also want to add
more younger teams in the future to expand again,
we as a team are encouraging our players to get in
to coaching and helping out with the younger teams,
we look to make the academy bigger and stronger
for the future and think that is possible because we
are in a very professional environment with a lot of
supportive people around us”.
Also recently BSA picked up the National Grassroots
Community Champions Award at Hampden which was
presented by Kenny Dalglish
and just shortly before that, BSA
Chairman and Under 19’s coach
Joe McGuire received the South
West region’s grassroots award
for best volunteer in youth
football.
In early October of this year,
the club received the SFA’s
Disability Club Award after creating a disability section
within its structure. David McArdle, Scottish FA disability
development officer , said: ‘The club have worked
extremely hard to engage with local groups to ensure
the disability club is fully integrated to the club structure.
Blantyre are a well ran club with the ethos being all about
their local community and how football can be used
develop the community.’ Promising times ahead for an
already very successful soccer academy in Blantyre.
“We are really enjoying being
part of the academy, everyone
has been very welcoming.”
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