Cliftonville and Crusaders to launch joint academy
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Print
Email
North Belfast rivals Cliftonville and Crusaders will today join forces to launch a new football apprenticeship scheme.
‘Academy North’ is a pilot scheme which will see 11 local youngsters offered football placements.
All 11 will be on the books of either the Reds or the Crues as players but will work together during the week in a variety of football related activities such as coaching — in association with the Irish Football Association — ground maintainance, and administration. North City Training is running the programme with funding from the Department for Employment and Learning.
“This is a new sports and education training programme,” explained North City training operations manager Cathy McNeill.
“The IFA, Belfast City Council and GMB trade union are involved and the aim is to help young school leavers increase their employability skills through providing ‘Training For Success’, a DEL scheme providing essential skills training in vocational and personal development programmes.”
The scheme will be launched this morning at Lansdowne Court Hotel in Belfast.
Post a comment
Limit: 500 characters
View all comments that have been posted about this article
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP address logged and may be used to prevent further submissions. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by BelfastTelegraph.co.uk's Terms of Use.
Posts submitted in UPPERCASE letters will be rejected.
.
10%
14%
SUB.ZERO,
If N. Belfast is so bad then why is it that you feel the need to spend time commenting on it and to go one further your not even welcome and I speak for both Crues and Reds fans there.
Sounds like your another buffoon that lives in a caravan in the wild wild west in which case the promised land of N. Belfast is well out of bounds for you.
Posted by Ice cube... | 18.12.09, 09:45 GMT
Have to say that i agree with the snowman! in that if the we Crues were not doing so well would Cliftonville want anything to do with them? I think not.
But you have to remember that both teams are from north Belfast, which is the run down miserable part of belfast! so any we ray of light on the dirty north should be good...
Posted by SUB.ZERO | 17.12.09, 13:02 GMT
Everyone needs to cool it. It would be very foolish of Martin or Paulo or CFC to assume that this process will be easy to employ and it will happen overnight, however this is the next natural step for N. Belfast and Snowballs concerns although maybe a bit overboard if not outdated still must be taken under consideration because lets not fool ourselves by thinking that we live in an ideal society.
Paulo - Do you live in a caravan in the wild wild west or a boat in Bangor Harbour?? This Snowball guy cracks me up...
Posted by Ice cube... | 15.12.09, 12:41 GMT
Oh so its like that then. Lets throw a blanket over it and pretend The Crues and Cliftonville have a great relationship outside of the boardroom, yeah right.
Some of you guys are going to come back down to earth with a huge bang if this actually goes ahead and then you naive bunch will realise that the snowball was right all along...
Posted by Stevie AVFC. | 14.12.09, 13:56 GMT
Snowball,
There has been a great relationship between both clubs for years, this was just the next natural step.
North Belfast leads, others follow!
Posted by Martin | 11.12.09, 15:18 GMT
Keep your cheap outmoded thinking to yourself snowman. This is a positive story about North Belfasts premier clubs. Both clubs have worked hard in recent years to break down barriers and reach out the hand of friendship. North Belfast needs more integration.The committees of both clubs get on well so just you go back behind your barricade and ignore this positive move.
Posted by CFC | 11.12.09, 14:08 GMT
Paulo, come back to planet earth and tell Eddie Patterson to help you wind your neck in.
This is just typical from the boys from the dark side of N. Belfast. They see that the wee Crues have got a good thing going on at Seaview ie new pitch, much improved youth set up, young international players and trophies in the cabinet and before they will put the hard work in themselves they just just jump on the Crusaders gravy train and ride it all the way to Stormont.
Paulo - theres no way your from N. Belfast with that attitude. You would be better going back to your caravan in the wild wild west or back to your boat down at Bangor harbour and sail off back to dreamland where your initial thought that this was in some way a good idea first appeared in the middle of the tunnel in ones mind.
Posted by The snowball... | 10.12.09, 16:10 GMT
Brilliant - Good on the Reds and the Hatchet Men. They are leading where out pathetic politicians fear to tread.
This sort of thing plus joint training between between football and Gaelic clubs and rugby clubs for all kids. Integrated education next and eventually we will have a generation respecting each other instead turning Bob the Builder gigs into a riot.
Posted by Paulo | 10.12.09, 13:03 GMT