ARCHIVED NEWS ENTRIES

AGM

The association AGM will take place at 7:30pm on Sunday 11th May at The Jewel Miners Club.

All clubs are invited to send representatives.

Midlothian 4 v4

Midlothian 4v4 starts Saturday 26th April 2008 from 9:30pm-11:00am at Burghlee Park, Loanhead (Home of Loanhead BC). This is aimed at boys and girls aged 5 to 8 and is free!

For information, please see the Flyer (PDF - 291KB) or contact Keith Wright, Development Officer, Midlothian Council.

Change of Contact

1998 Under 10s, Tynecastle in Zidane Group

The new contact for this team is Andy Coventry.
Contact me (- see Contact page) or match secretary if you require his contact details.

The SFA are holding 4v4 Come and Play days. For information, see below-

In Service Day - Monday 7th April 2008

Next Mondays In-service (Skills Test) at Poltonhall Astro pitch is cancelled due to lack of interest from clubs.
Any replacement will be advertised on the site.

Fixture List Changes

Under 10
Cavalry Park have taken over the fixtures of the Free Team in the Under 10 Maradona Division.

Under 11
Easthouses have dropped from the Pele Division to Zidane Division. CSS and Haddington Athletic have also joined Zidane Division.

In Pele Division this leaves two free teams to play each other.
New fixtures will be issued for Zidane Division, although this will not change games in Week 1.

For details of the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth SSDA Festival on 11th & 12th May 2008 and 17th & 18th May 2008, please see the Festival Page.

ESSDA General Meeting - CHANGE OF DATE

The next General Meeting of ESSDA will take place at The Jewel Miners Club at 7:30pm on Sunday 2nd March 2008.

Details of future meetings are available on the General Info page.

The Second Half of the 2007-2008 will run from
Sunday 9th March 2008 until Sunday 22nd June 2008,
as part of the move to Summer Football.

The last date for new teams or league changes will be 10th February 2008. Please contact your Match Secretary now.

The Futsal Page shows the new corrected times for Futsal Festival at World of Soccer on 3rd February 2008 and all remaining fixtures at Dalkeith Campus and World of Soccer.
Sorry for the confusion.

Football 4s - Goals

Football 4s  Goals  from  Hearts  are ready  for  collection.
Please  contact  Alan  White alan@homplc.co.uk

Teams still to collect -

• Haddington

• Redpath Albion

• Crammond

• Tranent

Football 4s at Hearts Academy

ESSDA Winter Futsal Programme

Futsal is being introduced by ESSDA with the support of the Scottish FA. The futsal season will start on the 13th of January through to the 29th of February. There will be a festival held at the world of football on the 3rd of February.

Futsal is a great way for kids to develop modern football skills and improve their technique through the winter months. The game helps develop fast quick thinking , skilful players. The game is played indoors to touchlines not walls, making players use drag backs and other skills to utilise space, with 4v4 outfield it is the optimum number of players to enhance skill and technique.

Venue Choices

• Edinburgh North: Ainsle Park
• Edinburgh South: Gracemount Leisure Centre
• Edinburgh East : Jack Kane Centre
• Edinburgh West: Firhill High School
• Midlothian/East Lothian: Dalkeith Campus

Teams must email the General Secretary of ESSDA and  southeast@scottishfa.co.uk stating your team name, age group and preferred venue by 5pm on 12th of December 2007. Alternatively please call the Scottish FA South East Office 0131 442 1538 to register interest.

Details will be updated on the new Futsal page.

Football 4s Initiative at Fernieside FC

For details of the upcoming Football 4s Initiative with Fernieside FC, ESSDA and SFA, see the Football 4s page.

Coach Education for 2008

Details of Coach Education Courses in South East Region can be found on this website (Coach Education) or Football Central.

Monitoring Forms

Every team should complete and return a monitoring form to their League Secretary to ensure all teams are in the correct division for next season. Teams should indicate their preferred division Pele > Maradona > Zidane > Beckham.

Here is the monitoring form in a couple of formats:
Word Document - Monitoring Form (DOC - 44KB)
PDF Document - Monitoring Form (PDF - 57KB)

Quarterly Meeting of ESSDA

The ESSDA Quarterly Meeting will take place at 7:30pm at The Jewel Miners Club on Sunday 18th November 2007.

All clubs are invited to attend and to submit items for the agenda.

Under 8s and Under 9s

The Under 9 fixtures  and the Under 8 fixtures are now available on this site.

Under 11 Fixtures

There have been a few revisions in the Under 11 fixtures to accommodate teams swapping leagues.

Under 10 Fixtures

The Under 10 fixtures are now available on this site.

Under 11 - (1997) - Changes to Fixtures

There have been a few changes to the fixtures for this age group due to:

Tynecastle FC Colts moved from Zidane to Maradona Division
Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic moved from Zidane to Beckham Division
Currie Boys have added a new squad to Beckham Division

Change of Address

Dave Norris (General Secretary) has a new address:-
10C Market Street, Musselburgh, E Lothian, EH21 6PT

Football 4s for Under 8s

Please see Football 4s page for details of plans to introduce Football 4s for the under 8 age group from next season.

EDRA - Edinburgh District Referee Association

Anybody interested in becoming a referee?
The course is free and starts on 3 September 2007.
Click here for more details about EDRA.

or go to www.edinburghrefs.com

Hearts v Barcelona

At the recent Heart of Midlothian v Barcelona game  several children from ESSDA were pictured with the local stars.
Click on the small picture to see all the players.

ESSDA Fixtures 2007-2008 First Half

Fixtures were distributed to clubs at the ESSDA Quarterly meeting. If your club was not represented at the meeting, please contact the Match Secretary for your age group to get your fixtures. Matches start on Sunday 26th August 2007.

PLEASE NOTE: In the Under 12 Premier Division - Spartans will be taking over the fixtures of the Free Team and Beechwood have dropped out of this division, making this fixture the Spare Week.

ESSDA Quarterly Meeting

The regular ESSDA quarterly meeting will take place tonight at 7:30pm, The Jewel Miners Club - 19th August 2007

Fixtures for the First Half of the 2007/2008 Season will be distributed at the meeting for all age groups.

ESSDA Season 2007/2008

Entries for the 2007/2008 season at ESSDA have now closed. All clubs should have completed their ESSDA applications and returned them to their Match Secretary. All clubs should also have completed Associate Member forms for SYFA.

Fixture Lists will be available at the ESSDA Meeting on 19th August 2007 at The Jewel Miners Club at 7:30pm.

The season will run from 26th August 2007  to 25th November 2007.

DISCLOSURE  PROCESS 

The  process  for  completing  Disclosure  Forms  has  changed.  Below  are  the  requirements  you  will  need  to complete  the  new  style  forms. 

Anyone  completing  a  Disclosure  Form  should  have  the  following  originals  only – no  photocopies. 

Birth  Certificate;  Passport;  Driving  Licence;  note  of  National  Insurance  number;  Utility  Bill / Bank  statement / other  proof  of  address  ( must  not  be  less  than  3  months  old ).  Address  history  for  last  5  years,  this  must  include  a  resident  from  date;  note  of  any  previous  disclosure  certificate  number. 

All  forms  must  be  completed  in  Blue  or  Black  pen. 

If  you  do  not  have  a  Passport  or  new  style  driving  licence  you  must  provide  photographic  proof  of  identity. 

* Please  Note :  If  you  change  clubs  you  must  be  Disclosed  again * 

Please  contact  the  General  Secretary  should  you  still  require  to  be  Disclosed.

SYFA / Club Website Ltd Seminar 

Hopefully you will be aware of the recent partnership SYFA have agreed with Club Website Ltd. Club Website is the SYFA's chosen partner to provide free league and club websites to all SYFA affiliated members from the start of the forthcoming season. A few communications have been sent out in recent weeks informing you of this partnership and hopefully you have had the chance to review the information and the service's Club Website provide.

Club Website may have already contacted you directly, and if not will be doing so in the near future. In light of the partnership with Club Website, SYFA are considering hosting a seminar day so Club Website can assist you, the leagues and clubs, in setting up your website or answer any queries or questions you may have on the services they provide.

SYFA envisage the seminar session lasting no longer than two hours on Thursday 23 August 2007. All seminars will be held at Hampden Park.

Club Website will run three seminars throughout the day as follows:

• One seminar in the morning at10am,
• One seminar in the afternoon at 2pm
• One seminar in the evening at 7pm

To help with the organization of the day can you respond and let Hazel at SYFA know if this is something that would be of interest to you and what is your preferred attendance time. 

 If you could reply by the Wednesday 1st August that would be much appreciated. 

Hopefully  the information provided is of assistance to you but should you require additional information please do not hesitate to contact David Little at SYFA.

SFA Coaching Courses

A number of SFA Coach Education courses have been arranged for the end of July. All will take place at Warriston Playing Fields. There will be a Level 1 (23/7), two Level 2 (24&25 July and 26&27 July) and a Level 3 (30&31 July). More details are available on Football Central website or contact SFA Development Officer (David Sheldon) on Davidsheldon@sportinedinburgh.com

SFA Holiday Courses

The SFA have organised a number of holiday courses for boys and girls in City of Edinburgh. Courses are throughout July and early August. More details are available on Football Central website or contact SFA Development Officer (David Sheldon) on Davidsheldon@sportinedinburgh.com

AGM on 3rd June

A report of the AGM, held on Sunday 3rd June 2007 at The Jewel Miners Club will appear here shortly.

SFA News

Midnight leagues (free 5-a-sides at Power League Sighthill on a Friday night from 7-8.30) already started see Midnight Flyer - (PDF 3MB) warning - large document!

4v4 Football restarting in August.  6-7.30 for 6-8 year olds and 7.30-9 for 9-12 year olds. See 4v4 Flyer (PDF 464KB)

Your chance to play at Tynecastle! 

Heart of Midlothian Football Club are offering young players in the 5-14 age range the experience of a lifetime. This will be their chance to run down the same tunnel as a number of Hearts favourites such as Bauld, Cruikshank, Robertson, Mckay, Adam, De Vries and Gordon and play on the Tynecstle pitch. Not only that, Hearts will take a picture of all participants in the famous tunnel and present them with a special certificates as a souvenir of the two days. 

Hearts are running this two day coaching course on the 22 and 23 May. Using the unique Coerver® Coaching ‘Pyramid of Player Development©’, players will be led through a series of ball mastery skills, 1v1 moves, passing and receiving, speed, finishing and group play sessions.  All participants will play in a series of fun small-sided games each day.  

To book a place or for more information call the booking hotline on 0870 3600 442. Open Monday – Friday 10.00am - 5.00pm or go to www.heartsfc.co.uk and click on ‘our community’

Newton Wanderers Football Festival

Newton Wanderers are holding a football festival on 5th and 6th May 2007 at Broadwood Football Stadium. For details of the festival, please see the attached Information (PDF - 120KB)
Especially looking for younger groups - 99.

Quality Mark Sponsorship Offer: Frankie & Benny's

The Scottish FA have been approached by Frankie and Benny's to provide support to clubs going through quality mark. If your club is based close to one of their restaurants and you are interested in being put forward, can you please fill in the attached application form (PDF - 35KB).

The selection of clubs to receive support will be at the discretion of the restaurant manager. Frankie & Benny have restaurants in Kinnaird Park, Omni Centre and South Queensferry.

Kick for CLIC Sargent

CLIC Sargent is one of the UK's largest children's cancer charity. Throughout May and June the charity runs an event called ‘Kick for CLIC Sargent’, which aims to get the nation kicking whilst raising funds for children with cancer.

For details see www.clicsargent.org.uk/football or email emma.bashford@clicsargent.org.uk

Disclosure Scotland

Early Touches

The Early Touches course at Dalkeith Campus on 16 and 23 March 2007 has been cancelled due to lack of numbers.
Any coach who had applied will get their discount on an alternative Early Touches course.

Change in Contact Info

The contact for Loanhead (Pele) in the Under 10 (1997) league is Peter Kay .

Upcoming Festivals

• under 12's eleven aside development, under 13's 14's and 15's eleven aside.
• 11 a-side teams participating  from Dublin and Belfast.
• Soccer 7's places available at Age 9, 10 & 11's.

Soccer Sevens places also available for Age 9's, 10's and 11's.

Teams may travel each day or can stay in accommodation in Ayr.

For more details on either or both of the above call on 07958 536 895 or 01620 824 941 - please leave a message and you will be contacted.

Football 4s - Easter Holidays

Due to holidays, there will be no Football 4s at the Hearts Academy on Sunday 8th and 15th April 2007

Development Plan

The South East Football Development Plan is available for download from the Football Central website for you to review and comment.

Edinburgh Sports Academy

Applications are invited for a new Sports Academy in Edinburgh. All applicants must be Primary 7 children in Edinburgh. The first set of trials will be on Friday 16th March 2007.

For more information please read Sports Academy Boys Football Leaflet (PDF - 857KB)
The application form can be found as Sports Academy Boys Football Application Form (PDF - 119KB).

This is a great opportunity for Primary 7 children in Edinburgh and is the first of its kind in Scotland.

Edinburgh Sports Academy

Applications are invited for a new Sports Academy in Edinburgh. All applicants must be Primary 7 children in Edinburgh. The first set of trials will be on Friday 16th March 2007.

For more information please read Sports Academy Boys Football Leaflet (PDF - 857KB)
The application form can be found as Sports Academy Boys Football Application Form (PDF - 119KB).

This is a great opportunity for Primary 7 children in Edinburgh and is the first of its kind in Scotland.

SYFA Late Registrations

Heart of Midlothian Goalkeeping Development Centre

For information about the new Heart of Midlothian Goalkeeping Development Centre and for details about upcoming Goalkeeping Courses, please see the attached - Goalkeeping Leaflet (PDF - 315KB)

Coach Wanted - Currie Star

Currie Star u9s require a coach for their established team who currently play in the Maradona League. Qualifications are not essential as the club will put you through relevant courses. For more information contact Lisa on 07917-407-722

Tynecastle Match Days - Half Time Games

Clubs wanting to take the opportunity to play Football 4s at Half Time during Hearts matches at Tynecastle are requested to make these requests through the General Secretary rather than direct to Heart of Midlothian FC. The association will set criteria to allow clubs to participate.

Two clubs which recently played at Tynecastle were Edinburgh City and Newcraighall Vics. To see a picture of their big day, click on the images below:-
Edinburgh City - Newcraighall Vics

Coach Education

Details of an extra Early Touches course at Dalkeith Campus on 16th and 23rd March 2007 is available on the Coach Education page.

Clubs are reminded that if they want to organise an extra SFA Coaching Course to satisfy specific demand, then they are asked to do this via the General Secretary rather than direct to SFA Development Officers.

Unite the Clubs

For details about the successful Unite the Clubs march on February 14th 2007, please go to www.unitetheclubs.co.uk

Football 4s 

Further details of Football 4s is available on the Football 4s page.

Fixtures for 2006/2007 Second Half

Please note the following amendments to the fixture lists issued on Sunday

SFA Holiday Courses - February & Easter

The SFA/City of Edinburgh will be running holiday courses during the February and Easter break. More details can be found in the attached flyer - School Holiday 2007 (PDF - 229KB)

SFA Coaching

The new Coach Education Brochure from the SFA is available for download from http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_football.cfm?curpageid=455

Cumbernauld Colts FC Annual Soccer Festival

Cumbernauld Colts FC Annual Soccer Festival will be held over the weekend 18th & 19th August 2007. More details on the festival page.  

ESSDA Meeting & Prize Draw

The regular quarterly ESSDA meeting was held on 19th November 2006 at The Jewel Miners Club at 7:30pm. Minutes of this meeting will appear on the General Info page shortly.
The Prize Draw sponsored by WT Dunbar  (Funeral Directors) took place with the following winners:-

Preston Athletic u9 - Set of Strips
KSQ u9 - Set of Strips
Oxgangs u12 - Training Equipment
Royston Rangers u11 - Medical Bag

Congratulations to all winners and thanks again to WT Dunbar.

For a photo of Carlo making the draw, please click here.

Deaf Community Sport Club

For all families with deaf/hearing parents with deaf/hearing children.
Please click on the attached link for information about a new club in Glasgow - Deaf Community Sport Club or contact Paul McCusker on paul@deafconnections.co.uk

Spare Teams - Free Weeks

If any  club  would  like  to  add  a  team  in  the  fixtures  "spare  week",  they  must  first  ask  their  match  secretary.  Under  no  circumstances  should  any  club  phone  the  "spare  team"  and  arrange  a  game.  If  any  club  has  another  team  to  fill  these  spaces  they  must  first  register  this  team  as  normal.

Girls Football

ESSDA is looking into setting up a Girls Only Section. If your club is interested, please contact Dave Norris.

Festivals of Football

For details about up-coming tournaments and festivals, see our Festival Page

Clubs are reminded that they need a permit from the SYFA to play in football festivals or tournaments.

Permission forms can be downloaded from the SYFA website www.scottishyouthfa.co.uk or by contacting the General Secretary:
Failure to get appropriate permissions may invalidate your insurance.

Child Protection

Anybody interested in the "In Safe Hands" workshop on Child Protection, please contact Pia Muir. Details can be found in the attached brochure - "In Safe Hands"(PDF - 47KB).

7 a side Football

It has come  to the attention of the committee that some fixtures are being organised and played with more than 7 players per team. 

This  association  only  allows  soccer  sevens and football 4s to  be  played. 

Upon applying all coaches signed their application form, by doing so you agreed to comply with the ESSDA rules. 

By playing football other than 7-a-side you will be subject to disciplinary procedures. 

We have consulted the SYFA ( our governing body ) and their response was that the association has their full backing on this issue. 

We appeal to you all to stop playing non 7-a-side football.