The Dig­i­cel TT Pro League's newest out­fit Cen­tral FC has en­gaged in a part­ner­ship with a Port-of-Spain-based coach­ing school, Foot­ball Fac­to­ry, in what both clubs' ex­ec­u­tives have de­scribed as a chance for youth in the Cen­tral re­gion to at­tend a top-qual­i­ty lo­cal foot­ball pro­gramme.

Now called the Cen­tral FC Foot­ball Fac­to­ry, the club will be based at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas, and will be launched with an East­er camp, which starts on Tues­day.

Cen­tral FC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and for­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al Brent San­cho rel­ish­es the op­por­tu­ni­ty which he says his club of­fers to Cen­tral's youth.

San­cho said: "One of our key aims as a com­mu­ni­ty club is to of­fer a top qual­i­ty coach­ing school lo­cat­ed in the Cen­tral re­gion. Aside from of­fer­ing a chance for young­sters to have fun in a safe, su­per­vised en­vi­ron­ment, it is al­so the first step for tal­ent­ed foot­ballers on the path to pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball."

He said tal­ent­ed play­ers will be brought in­to the "Sharks" youth team struc­ture, which cur­rent­ly com­petes in the Oa­sis Youth Pro League.

"It's a pro­gres­sion through the youth teams to our re­serves and fi­nal­ly to the first team," said San­cho. "But for chil­dren, foot­ball should ini­tial­ly be about hav­ing fun, so the coach­ing school, while de­vel­op­ing skills, will al­so en­cour­age those with less abil­i­ty to en­joy the game."

The Foot­ball Fac­to­ry has de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as a well or­gan­ised coach­ing school in the cap­i­tal and is seek­ing to ex­pand its brand across the coun­try. One of the founders, Ter­ry Fen­wick, a for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al de­fend­er is al­so head coach of Cen­tral FC.

"Once we be­gan to work on a coach­ing school for Cen­tral FC, it was nat­ur­al to use the same struc­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion as the Foot­ball Fac­to­ry," said Fen­wick.

He con­tin­ued: "It then be­came ob­vi­ous that the best way to de­liv­er the same qual­i­ty of coach­ing that is de­liv­ered in Port-of-Spain was to com­bine the Foot­ball Fac­to­ry and Cen­tral FC brands."

Reg­is­tra­tion for the East­er camp will be­gin on Tues­day. The camp will run from 9 am to 2 pm on Tues­day to Fri­day and re­sume on April 8-12.

Reg­is­tra­tion is $20 per day with a pack­age of nine days set at $150, which in­cludes two free tick­ets for Cen­tral FC's Pro League clash with Cale­do­nia and two free ses­sions at the Cen­tral FC Foot­ball Fac­to­ry, which will be­come a week­ly coach­ing school. Chil­dren from the age of six and old­er are wel­come and are re­quired to walk with a packed lunch.

Fen­wick said the club has al­ready un­cov­ered some tal­ent­ed school­boys and ex­pects to see sev­er­al young­sters vis­it clubs in the UK in com­ing months.

"We're very ex­cit­ed about the de­vel­op­ment of Cen­tral FC as it ap­proach­es its first an­niver­sary," said San­cho. "It's been a tough year and we've had to learn fast, but we're hap­py with our progress."

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