Young footballers in Waihi, New Zealand, kicked off for another year on Sunday when around 100 children and their parents made their way to Morgan Park for the first 2019 session of Waihi AFC’s Junior Football Programme.

This year’s programme has an expanded age bracket, allowing for older children to take part. Age groups range from 4-14 for both girls and boys, and each session includes skills drills and fun games, followed by a match.

Programme organiser Richard James said he was thrilled with the turnout and was looking forward to another successful year. New portable Youth Packagoals from Packaworld International were helping the programme to grow, he said.

Match days against other local clubs were being planned throughout the season, in addition to the regular Sunday sessions at Morgan Park, to give your players a chance to test their skills against others in the region.

An inflatable football pitch made its New Zealand debut recently as part of a pioneering after school programme being run at Glenview School in Porirua.

The programme – known as the Homework Club – sees volunteers from the community and local businesses visit the decile 1 school twice a week to talk about their work and help out with activities such as reading, cooking, crafts and sport.

​​Last week’s Homework Club focused on sport and saw around 20 Glenview students don the footballing colours of Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and France for an afternoon of football fun.

More action, more time on the ball, and more fun. That’s the difference a new fully-contained inflatable pitch is making for children taking part in the Grasshopper Soccer Redlands junior football programme in Queensland, Australia.

The programme is run by William Fraser, a former Queensland U18 national premier league assistant coach and Brisbane Roar community coach.

Mr Fraser has coached football for 20 years and now devotes his time to developing the next generation with a programme that focuses on improving children’s athleticism and motor skills using the beautiful game as a vehicle.

One of Wellington’s largest junior football clubs is looking to the future with a recent purchase of 20 Junior Football Packagoals from Packaworld International.

North Wellington Junior Football Club President Andrew Vines says the club plans to use the portable, inflatable goals to inspire players taking part in its ‘First Kicks’ and 'Fun Football' programmes, designed for the youngest age groups of 4-8 -year olds.

The junior programme involves teams of five, with no goalkeeper. The two metre by one metre Junior Football Packagoals meet New Zealand Football Junior Framework standards for First Kicks and Fun Football, making them “absolutely ideal” for the format, Mr Vines says.

A social football programme helping Aucklanders get their kicks has added portable, inflatable goals to its arsenal for the summer.

FootballFix provides five-a-side and seven-a-side football leagues across 11 sites in Auckland, with thousands of players competing each week. It also operates an after-school coaching programme and junior tournaments at a purpose-built academy in Albany.

Ten Junior Football Packagoals from Packaworld International will feature in the academy’s junior coaching and holiday programmes, and FootballFix Director Marc Prenty says he is really putting the new goals through their paces.

New Zealand sports equipment provider Packaworld International provided Junior Football Packagoals for a community education programme and junior football tournament held for the children of south Auckland at Mangere East Primary School. 
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The Youth Forum included special training from former All White David Mulligan and New Zealand Football’s Fit4Football programme. It was held as was part of the New Zealand Communities Football Cup – an annual competition that aims to connect diverse communities through sport. 

​Developed by New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils in conjunction with New Zealand Police, this year’s event saw 16 11-a-side men’s teams, 10 women’s five-a-side teams and 10 youth five-a-side teams compete in three separate competitions.

Sports enthusiasts in several Asian countries will now be able to buy a range of unique sports equipment from New Zealand company Packaworld International, thanks to an agreement with one of China’s leading sports equipment suppliers, AirGoal Sports.

Following several years of collaboration, Packaworld and AirGoal Sports have entered a distribution agreement, which extends Packaworld’s distribution network to east Asian countries, including China.

Packaworld CEO Peter Roberts said the agreement was a significant milestone in Packaworld’s history and a huge step towards achieving the company’s vision of bringing the joy of sport to more people around the world.

Packaworld sent portable football goals to the Fijian village of Namara to help bring the joy of sport to children at a school being rebuilt after Cyclone Winston.

Fulton Primary School has more than 100 students, and is located two hours’ drive from the town of Rakiraki in Fiji’s Ra province. Following the destruction of the school’s classrooms by the powerful February 2016 cyclone, tents were deployed as temporary classrooms, and the school sports field was affected by the need to store materials for construction.

Football Packagoals were transported to the school by the Gracegate Centre’s ‘Move to Fiji’ school rebuild initiative.