Funmi Ogundare
It was celebration all the way recently, as students of Caleb British International School, Lekki, received certificates of participation from the Southampton Football Academy, United Kingdom for taking part in a training and football competition.
CBIS students merged with two other schools to play against students from UK and Canadian schools, where the team qualified for the finals and won.
The students’ exposure of the students to the academy, was, aside giving them the opportunity for global networking, it was to enhance their resilience, empathy, confidence and empowerment, sharp thinking, learning, and exercising good judgement, as well as keep their mental skills sharp.
Speaking at the brief presentation ceremony held at the school, in Lagos, Southampton Football Academy Coach, Andy Martino and another representative of the academy, Mr. ED Kilby commended CBIS team for displaying exceptional qualities.
“The boys from Caleb British International school, showed good character and willingness to learn and improve their skills.”
The CBIS coach Mr. Kazeem Gbajabiamila described the competition as a good experience for the students, they lodged in Solent University in Southampton, saying, “they had the opportunity to experience the university facility, which I found very educative to our students. They went on excursion to different heritage sites and cruise, and it was beautiful.
“Our students had the opportunity to be coached by UEFA grade A license development coaches, who are top coaches in the world.”
Some of the team members including; Emmanuel Oluwasegun Nwajei, Enyinnaya Okagwu, Genaro Nnaji Chisimdiri and others stated that going to Southampton Football Academy, UK, was a very good experience and helpful, as it gave them the opportunity to network with new friends from other countries and that the coaches were very hardworking and caring.
According to Akpan Blessing, “going to Southampton was a very good experience, l really loved it. It opened my mind about my future choices, l loved how the coaches took their time to train us very well, l gained a lot and had good experience. I took part in professional level drills which was helpful. The awareness training, passing, shooting, and finishing was exciting.”
On his part David Alfred said, “It was my first ever professional training in football, we got a strict schedule on what we had to do, we woke up early, took breakfast, went for training, took a little rest, had lunch, went back for training, had dinner, we had a lot of activities, and it was insightful.”
