Nominated for: Sporting Champion of the Year – Rossway United U13s

A JUNIOR football team which allows children to focus on playing rather than winning has been nominated in the 2008 Pioneer Your Champions awards.

Rossway United U13s is up for our sports award thanks to the great spirit shown by its players as well as the dedication and effort of coaches Allan Brown and Neil Dixon.

Hailed as a “family club”, Rossway organises summer and Christmas activities for the children, regular social gatherings for the parents and carries out its own fundraising to compete in league and soccer tournaments.

The current U13s side was set up two years ago when Allan decided to form a team that could give children who did not make their club’s 11-a-side squads the chance to play football.

He explained: “When children go up to U11s it changes from mini-football sides to 11-a-side.

“What you get is local teams having to cull their numbers for one side.

“Kids just want to play football, so we decided to take all those without a team and set up our own with up to 18 players.

“They really enjoy it and are improving all the time. Every year we do something for them at Christmas like take them bowling and once a year we take them on a coach trip to a caravan park to play in a tournament.”

The team recently won the fair play award at the 2008 Lincolnshire Trophy tournament in Mablethorpe, which was voted for by competing teams and the match officials.

Allan added: “They were chuffed to bits to win that. Everyone said how we played the game the right way and that is what it’s all about for me.”