THE North Geelong Warriors have embarked on a series of community wide training sessions with their junior sides, as part of the NPL Community Football Program, which kicked off last week with a visit by their Under 12’s NPL side to the St Leonards based Bellarine Sharks Soccer Club.

This was followed up on Monday night, when the Assistant Coach of the North Geelong Senior NPL team, David Anderson, took charge of a combined training session at the Barwon Heads Soccer Club.

According to the region’s only NPL Victoria club, the concept is designed to allow both the community clubs and their coaches to share knowledge and experience with the Warriors coaching staff, as well as provide the community clubs with an insight into the NPL club.

“We hope that by doing this, on a consistent basis, we will open up the channels of communication between all the clubs and the North Geelong Warriors. Together with all our experience and football knowledge in the region, we all stand to gain by working collaboratively”, explained the Warriors’ Technical Director, Josip Zilic.

“North Geelong is very proud of the fact that so many clubs within the region are represented within the NPL club’s list and want to recognise this by encouraging players to wear their club of origin kit or apparel when they visit their home clubs. ”

“We don’t want people to feel they need to lose their connection to the club they started with. Everyone should be proud of their roots and the players are no different”, stated Zilic.

“We all enjoyed our visit to Bellarine, the parents of our players got to see another side of our club and the benefit it can bring to the region and our players got to meet other footballers they don’t usually meet in the course of the season.

“Sometimes it’s nothing to do with football and the sport only becomes the mechanism that brings us to together, that’s the part I really enjoy, meeting the wonderful people in their community that supports our beautiful game.

“After the training session at Bellarine, for example, long time stalwarts of the Sharks, Murray Hall and Robert Sinclair, took some time to chat with me about how North Geelong can assist them. As a result we will be now providing further sessions from our coaches as well as sharing a database of (training) session plans that their club can use to develop their players,” concluded Zilic.

At this stage, the Warriors’ upcoming schedule for the NPL Community Football Program includes visits to Barwon Heads SC, Geelong SC and Surfside Waves throughout July and August, as well as clinics at its Elcho Park complex in early September.

PICTURED: Members of the North Geelong Warriors Under 12 team, a selection of juniors from Bellarine Sharks and officials from both clubs pose for a group photo after last Friday's session