The Griffith Moorooka Football Club will be launching their ‘Life Greater than Football’ development program for players aged 16 to 21 on the 20th of September 6pm, at Alexander park.
Both Griffith Moorooka Football Club and Football Operations Manager Mitchell Merritt, are the driving force behind this development program.
Merritt and Griffith Moorooka have developed this new program to assist young players with important off the field areas.
“The key areas of teaching include; mental health and resilience, career planning, cultural development and global mobility,” said Merritt.
“(They’ll also get some) financial literacy essentials, which includes things such as budgeting and credit loans.”
team of industry professionals have been recruited to deliver the teaching across the above-mentioned core life areas.
he teaching team that Griffith Moorooka and Merritt have assembled are all very excited to be a part of the program.
“We’ve spoken to a lot of really impressive people in the business world who in are very interested in coming down and donating their time to share stories and strategies,” said Merritt.
The inspiration to create this program comes from Merritt’s own personal life experience and the to grow his football club.
“Personally, I did grow up in the region and thinking about my own background and some of the things I would’ve liked to have been told at the 16 to 21-year-old age group. Second, we do want to develop a youth football program pathway from junior to senior football at Moorooka,” he said.
Griffith Moorooka’s new development program comes after a strong year of junior football growth at the club.
“We’ve grown juniors to 102[players] from 52[players] last year. So, numbers in juniors have kept growing and we need to make that leap into youth football,” said Merritt.
Merritt also pointed out that the program will highlight international opportunities for young players.
“We’ve got the ability to encourage our members to be culturally aware and travel. If they want to play football in Canada we do have a sister club or if they want to go to Japan or Germany there’s clubs all over the world which we can put them in contact with,” said Merritt.
Regarding attracting young people to the program from the community, Merritt and Griffith Moorooka are the different teaching strategies they will use.
“The biggest plan is around referral and word of mouth. Definitely use social media. Once people realise the value of the program and how it differs from school and university teaching, then that’ll attract them,” he said.
The first introductory session will be held at Alexander Park which will run for an hour, and will include a barbecue.
For more information check the Griffith Moorooka Australian Football Club Facebook page.
By Aaron Goodwin
