800 Soccer Players gather for the Christian Football Federation Australia National Championships
The start of October saw about 800 soccer players from across Australia and New Zealand converge on the suburb of Redcliffe, just north of Brisbane. As boys, girls, men, women, parents, siblings and kids all travelled to compete or cheer on their friends and family. A week’s worth of memories, highlights, a few injuries and plenty of stories were created. That’s right – it was the Christian Football Federation Australia National Championships. With 7 different categories from under 14 boys to senior ladies the tournament kicked off with an opening ceremony where the players and officials took their pledges. They were inspired by Olympic swimmer Daniel Smith sharing his story and then a parade of colours closed the ceremony. All set to compete!
This nationals was the first time each state had a designated chaplain, a person there to provide pastoral care and to take some of the focus off the result and put more on the people. Our QLD chaplain, I believe, may have received the loudest cheering.
Well done to all those chaplains and a special shout out to Andrew Haddock and Dale Dowler for championing the cause of chaplaincy in churches soccer. I know there are many more people involved but these guys have walked the journey and kept this as a priority.
Congrats to all who competed, officiated, planned, cheered and everything in between ( a HUGE shout out to the managers and parents who washed the uniforms each night). It was a great week for all involved and some quality soccer (football I should probably say) was played as well.
All of the associated churches leagues of soccer across the country are keen to pursue chaplaincy in their local clubs. Maybe you might know someone who could become a chaplain to one of the many clubs represented from Victoria to Western Australia out to Broken Hill and even across the ditch to NZ and everywhere in between? If so, we’d love to hear from you.