Our academy U10 and U11 teams visited Border City Amateur Boxing Club on Monday evening as part of the life skills programme which is currently running in the foundation phase of our academy.
Lead foundation phase coach Robbie Edgar explained the reasoning behind getting the young lads out of their comfort zone.
"It’s just something completely different to what we usually do with them,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for them to come and try a new sport which gives them a new challenge.
"There’s a bit of discipline to it, which is new for the boys. We give them a bit of that kind of thing but it’s obviously totally different in a boxing environment.
“When we told them they would be boxing I did make it clear it would be non-contact, although a few of them did want the contact part of it!
"We’re going to keep it at non-contact at the moment, but we’re hoping the boys will enjoy it and maybe even add it to their training programme in the future."
“The people at Border City Amateur Boxing club have been a great help, and it shows that we’re out in the community and that the community are doing little things to help us as well," he continued. "We have to say a massive thank you to them for allowing us to bring the lads down.
“We also took a group of them orienteering a couple of weeks ago, because what we’re really concerned about is kids specialising too early.
"All of the studies show that kids who do a wide range of sports seem to do better in the long-term. Specialising in one thing too early doesn’t always work out, so we’re trying to add different things in from a young age which can only be better for everybody.
“We’ve got basketball lined up as well. That’s a good one because there’s a lot of overlap between basketball and football with the shape and the defensive side of things. They’ll also be doing futsal which I think is a massive learning tool.
"All these sorts of things can only be good for the kids. Anything we can add to the programme to make it more holistic can only make it better. Hopefully we’ll see some of these lads in the youth team and knocking on the first team door in five or six years’ time.”
