Saughall Colts Blacks U13s are planning a once in a lifetime 4-day overseas football trip to Madrid, Spain. Our team ethos is based on ‘nothing in life is given, it is always earned’. With this in mind, our team is facilitating an action-packed weekend to raise funds for the trip. Our home training ground will become our headquarters and the boys, coaches and parent volunteers will be camping out, using the onsite portable toilets and a make shift wash station with solar showers throughout the weekend.

During this weekend, our players, coaches and parent volunteers will cycle the distance from our home pitches at Seahill, Chester to Madrid Airport, Spain, a distance of 1272 miles. This distance will be covered on four exercise bikes kindly provided by our head strength and conditioning coach, Paul Reed, from The Athlete Factory Chester. Our aim is to cover this distance over the 48hr period starting at 17.00hrs Friday and finishing at 17.00hrs on Sunday. We will be sharing a live link so people can watch the boys complete this huge challenge. Any distance not covered after the weekend will then be completed on a weekly basis by the whole team at The Athlete Factory instead of doing our weekly strength and conditioning sessions.

In addition to this cycling challenge, we felt this weekend would be a great opportunity to highlight how distracting mobile phones and social media can be for teenagers. Therefore, the boys will also be required to hand all mobile devices in and will not be allowed to access them for the duration of the weekend.

We have a jam-packed itinerary planned for the weekend. We have engaged with anglers at the Chester Fisheries who have kindly agreed to take small groups on the Saturday morning and teach the boys how to fish. We are also very fortunate to have a Sports Psychologist with experience of working with the English Premier League in their coaching and referring departments. He is coming to spend the Saturday with the boys, watch them play some football and deliver workshops to build their mental skills and get the most from their time in sport. On the Sunday, players will be taught first aid and map reading skills whilst also completing some team building exercises. We also have a nutrition workshop being delivered to help the boys understand more about the best food sources to enhance their output. Our club will also be giving the boys some repair tasks on site to help with the upkeep of our home ground.

The physical demands of this weekend will challenge the boys, and giving up their mobile phones will be equally challenging! But the life lessons the boys will learn during this weekend without the distractions of social media will be immeasurable.

Being able to play overseas football is an amazing opportunity, and one which many teams may not be able to access due to the financial constraints of these trips. Raising their own funds for this trip reinforces our team’s ethos and will help our boys understand that you get out of life what you put in, a concept which can be applied to all areas of their lives, not just football. We have had quotes for this trip from multiple organisations. Our aim is to raise £11,610. This figure will cover the cost of each player’s trip. Parent places will be funded by parents themselves.

A huge thank you to those individuals and organisations who have agreed to give up their time to help our team and for making this possible:

Chairman, Saughall Colts JFC

The Athlete Factory

Mr Jordan Lewis, MSc, BSc, CPsychol, HCPC Registered

Asda

Stuart Lennon

Lower Ridge Fishery

The Tackle Store