FDC coaches have previously run After School Clubs in St. Columbanus College and more recently in Redburn Primary School.

An FDC coach will go to the school and coach a group of children for an hour when school finishes. After School Clubs are used by schools for all types of reasons and are great for coaching school teams, providing fun football for children who wouldn’t normally get to play, or even just to provide an extra hour of fun exercise away from the Playstation!

Craig, Bangor FC's Youth Development Officer, was very proud to see the success of the Redburn Primary and Sullivan Prep. After School Clubs by seeing them both make it to the 5-a-side finals day recently, with Sullivan going home as the champions!

After School Clubs are open to both primary and post primary schools and for groups of boys, girls, and of course, mixed groups.

Bangor Football Development Centre also provides curriculum time coaching for PE lessons, covering the national PE curriculum.

If you are interested in a Bangor FDC coach visiting your school please email Craig at craig.bowers@bangorfc.com or call 9145 7712.

It took place at Queens Leisure Complex in Holywood where the two groups were mixed together and split into teams to work together and earn points through different games and races.

These consisted of an SAQ session with some speed races and some small sided games in the sports hall.

Youth Development Officer, Craig Bowers along with FDC Coach Gus Hunter looked after the proceedings on a day where the football coaching wasn’t the main objective.

“It was a good fun day for the kids and the coaches and something we are really proud to be involved with” said Craig. “Football is a great common denominator and we are happy to see kids working together in this way and making new friends along the way. It’s nice also to see that both schools obviously see this kind of cross community exercise as important and go out of their way to make these opportunities for the children.”

This cross community day follows on from a day in which Bangor FDC assisted the same schools on a similar event last March.

Thanks go to the children who took part for being such good fun and to the teachers and teaching assistants who attended also. Special thanks go to Jane Ferguson from Clandeboye PS for keeping contact with Bangor FDC and getting us involved.

To get your family day ticket, email Craig at craig.bowers@bangorfc.com with FAMILY DAY as the subject. You will then be sent the ticket by email for you to print out and take with you. Bring your friends along too and they can also get in for free!
Please note: Children MUST always be accompanied by an adult

We hope you’ll take this opportunity to come along and support your local team.

Craig, along with the other FDC Coaches, Gus Hunter, Ryan Hay and Brian Elliott were all impressed with the improvement they seen in the children. Children as young as 5 are now doing The Ronaldo, The Zidane, The Ronaldinho and The Schevchenko turns.

Unfortunately the weather is against us carrying on over Christmas but the Mini Soccer Centre will restart towards the end of February.

The girls took part in coaching sessions with Youth Development Officer, Craig Bowers and FDC Coach Gus Hunter before playing matches against the other schools.

Everyone had a great day and we hope that this will just be the first of many Girls Only football activities. Each girl took home, what would be for most, their first football medal. Lets hope it will be the start of many medal collections!

Craig would like to thank the teachers from the schools who attended for their support and for giving their girls this opportunity.

The cost of the 10 night course is just £25.
Discounts are also available for brothers and sisters.
As ever, places are limited and to create more places we will again be running 2 sessions. The times of the sessions depend on age and times are as follows:

AGE
5 – 7 years........6 – 7pm
8 – 12 years.......7 – 8pm

The Mini Soccer Centre will take place at Bangor Sportsplex and will be on Astroturf.
To reserve a place, you need an application form. To get a form you can email Craig at craig.bowers@bangorfc.com, call him on 07718 160714.
If you email Craig and want it posted out, please include your name and address and number children you need forms for.
Return it to the address at the bottom of the form but please try to get it in AS SOON AS POSSIBLE as 24th September is not far away.

Application forms are also available to download in the Application Form .section of this site.

If you have any questions or queries, or if you think you might not be able to get your application form in on time, feel free to contact me either by email or call Craig on 07718 160714 before 6pm.

The FUNweek is for boys and girls from 5 to 14 years old.
It is held at Bangor Sportsplex and runs from 10.30 am to 1.30pm.

Parents are reminded that whatever the weather is like in the morning, all children are advised to bring a top or jacket in case it rains or gets cold later. They should also bring a snack for break.

Application forms can be dowloaded from the Application Form section of this site. Please download yours and return it ASAP. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Craig on 07718 160714 during the day or you can email craig.bowers@bangorfc.com.

As part of North Down Borough Council’s International Football Festival, our Youth Development Officer, Craig Bowers was approached to get the Football Development Centre involved in the annual event.

Craig was tasked to arrange a competition for the U9 and U10 age groups to run as the main competitions were taking place at the Valentine Playing Fields.

With the help of FDC volunteer coaches, Ross Williams and Brian Elliot to referee the matches and Courtney McCandless to keep score cards and make sure teams knew where and when to play, the tournaments were a great success.

14 teams battled it out for the Under 9 and Under 10 trophies.
The Under 9 age group consisted of Ards Youth, Burnley, Shankill Rangers, Shankill Swifts and Holywood Boys.
The competition was based on a league with each team playing the others once. Burnley were the eventual winners with Ards Youth runners up.

The Under 10 age group competition consisted of 2 groups with group winners meeting in the final.
Group A: Ards Youth, Templepatrick Alexandra YFC, Carniny Youth, Bangor Rangers A
Group B: Bangor Football Development CentreHolywood Boys, St. Patrick’s, Bangor Rangers B, Grosvenor

Some children who attended the FDC Mini Soccer Centre and FUNweeks were selected to represent the Bangor FDC and although they didn’t reach the final, they produced some of the most memorable moments of the day. In Bangor FDC’s first game, Alistair Shields stunned the crowd with an amazing goal right from the second half kick off. Dean Justin rolled the ball back into the Bangor half and Alistair unleashed an unstoppable shot that

Carniny Youth and St. Patrick’s met in the final and after an exciting encounter, St. Patrick’s came out on top as 3-0 winners.

On behalf of all involved in running the tournaments, Craig would like to thank the children and team representatives who had a long day but provided such entertaining football. Thanks must also go out to the parents and supporters who turned out in such great numbers to provide a brilliant atmosphere for the children on the pitch and also to North Down Borough Council for including Bangor FC in their Festival.

The week consisted of a structured programme of football coaching, with the emphasis being on fun, so there was plenty of time for fun learning games and matches as well as the ever popular penalty kick competition.

IFA Development Manager, Ian Stewart – the man who scored ‘that goal’ against West Germany in 1982 – called by to visit on Wednesday. “Craig has a very well structured and well organised FUNweek. The kids certainly seem to be having fun and the Sportsplex provides a great setting to hold a FUNweek” he commented.

The week ended with great weather and a fun filled day followed by the presentation of trophies to some lucky winners of our Promising Player awards.
In the 5-6 years age group Conor Hagan and Robbie Reid picked up the Promising Player awards and Conor also shared the Penalty Kick King trophy with Jacob Newell.
In the 7-8 years group, the Promising Players were Patrick Lyle and Matthew Mulligan and our Penalty King was George Prince.
Thomas Crawford and Dean “Goal Machine” Justin won the Players awards and Darragh McDonald was the Penalty King.
In the 10+ age group, Jonathan Munn won a Promising Player award along with David Scott who was also the winner of the Penalty Kick Competition.

As well as this each child took home their Umbro FDC FUNweek pack of a football, rucksack, boot bag and water bottle.