Christian youth football season starts in Norwich 

The Norfolk Christian football youth league season finally got under way on Saturday December 9, probably the wettest day of the season, reports Mike Culwick.

Soul Church U12 team were playing SWEP [Sprowston Youth Engagement Project] on the Heartsease playing field in Norwich. Well done to Steadman [Soul] and Clare [SWEP] for finally getting this game on after some very frustrating moments getting teams and players all registered.
 
The lads were a credit to their respective clubs and thoroughly enjoyed their game. Soul were a much stronger team and at half-time were into a double figure score. The coaches decided to mix the teams up and that evened the game up with SWEP getting on the scoreboard but still losing the game. Well done to all involved. It was good to see a number of parents at the game.
 
The second match was an U14 game between the same clubs and this was a very close competitive game played with great skill from both teams. SYEP took the three points this time and it could have gone either way.
 
It was a very enjoyable day for all, especially myself, as it marked ten years of Christian youth football on the Heartsease field, a great way of involving the youth in the community in church-backed sporting events.
 
The League is planning to invite churches to a meeting in the new year to share how we can help them to start football in their community. At its peak we had four age group divisions with 400 youngsters playing football every Saturday and hearing about Jesus. Something to think about, yes?
 
Pictured above and below is action from the NCFL youth games at Heartsease in Norwich on December 9. Soul were in the blue and SWEP in the red.