Mid Canterbury Football District Management Group:

Mr. Robert Breen, Mr. Steven Bierema, Mr. Michael Arnold

Rev. David Brown

Mid Canterbury Football Profile:

Mid Canterbury currently has over 850 people playing football at a variety of levels, which all come under the jurisdiction of our organisation.  We have a very strong local competition with teams between the ages of 6 and 15 years competing. The clubs are based in Ashburton, Methven, Rakaia and Hinds.  In addition to the local competition we have 10 representative teams playing weekly in the Christchurch based competition, playing alternatively in Christchurch and Ashburton with all of these teams playing in division one or two of their respective age groups in the 2010 season.  While our two senior men’s teams’ play in Division one of the Christchurch Senior Competition and the Player Development League. There are also five other senior teams (Mens and Womens) from Rakaia, Ashburton and Methven playing in other divisions of the Christchurch Senior Competition.

Mid Canterbury Football also sends representative teams to South Island tournaments in Blenheim, Nelson, Kaiapoi, Timaru, Queenstown and Methven.  In addition Mid Canterbury also hosts two high profile tournaments, the Under 17 Women’s South Island Tournament in Methven and the Japan/New Zealand tournament in Ashburton which attracts three teams from Japan and thirteen teams from around the South Island.  Every second year the Mid Canterbury team travels to Japan to play.  We have also been approached to run a National Secondary School Tournament in August this year.  As a result Mid Canterbury Football has a high profile not only in our area but throughout the South Island and overseas.

Mid Canterbury Football places a great deal of emphasis on the development of Football in the area and for this reason employs Peter Roberts as our Regional Development Officer.  As part of his responsibilities he runs programmes in Primary and Intermediate Schools in the area, holiday programmes, the training of coaches and oversees the development of our players. Much of his work in the communities and schools in Mid Canterbury aims to provide opportunities for the children and youth of the area to be introduced to the ‘World’ game, enjoy the benefits of playing sport, and become part of a team and club environment.

With numbers increasing steadily over the past few seasons, we anticipate this to continue in 2010. Factors such as the high profile of football in New Zealand, the recent success of the Wellington Pheonix and the New Zealand team qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa in June, we believe will continue to attract people to the game. In order to be able to maintain and improve the standard of player and coach development and maximise the opportunities to participate, Mid Canterbury Football continues to look to develop further income streams.