Students who play for Nelson and Colne College Sixth Form’s highly successful football team have enjoyed a tour of Ireland.
Nelson and Colne College has an outstanding reputation for sport and can count numerous sports stars as former students. From England’s Women Goalkeeper Rachel Brown to Olympic Bronze medallist and cyclist Steven Burke; the College has helped a wide range of athletes to achieve their sporting goals. Building on this success, the College has developed sports academies for Football, Netball and Basketball, which aim to help aspiring sportsmen and women to achieve success at a high level in their sport, alongside their academic studies.
This year, the football players had an opportunity to travel to Ireland on a special ‘team-building’ trip. Arriving in Dublin, the students travelled 45 minutes north of the city to Drogheda, where they would spent the next 3 nights. During the trip, the students played a match against local school, St.Mary’s at Dundalk Football Club, which is part of the Irish Premier League. They also played a club team from Dublin, St. Kevin’s, who are one of the top teams in Ireland. The students also watched a match, the Shamrocks versus the Bohemians and spent an afternoon at an Outdoor Adventure Centre.
Dan Clark, Sport tutor and football coach accompanied the students and said, “We wanted to give the football team a chance to further develop cohesion and motivation as a team and they have certainly come back to their studies more buoyant! It’s very important for a team to gel well together, off the pitch, as well as on it and so this trip gave the lads a fantastic opportunity to build strong bonds. The feedback we’ve had from the students has been fantastic and the trip to Ireland is certainly something we will consider again for future teams as part of our academy training.”
