Inflatable rides, games, medals, pizza, and popsicles highlighted the Richmond United FC spring jamboree this past Saturday as hundreds of families descended on Hugh Boyd Fields in West Richmond to celebrate another season in the bag,
The newly formed Richmond United Volunteer Committee manned the food and medal stations as teen coaches helps kids in and out of bouncy castles and slides. Steveston’s Pizza Factory provided more than 50 pizzas for the event, said RUFC Technical Lead David Thorburn.
“The jamboree is always a highlight for the club, but we wanted to go bigger this year and really give families a reason to stay for the day,” said the long time coach.
“We’ve got coach Angelo running around with a super soaker, everyone’s got their medals, there’s three bouncy castles, and lots of younger brothers and sisters who don’t play soccer yet feeling a part of the Richmond United family.”
RUFC has grown exponentially over the past six months, both on and off the field. Team results have been outstanding, with record numbers of teams making the Coastal Cup finals and BC Soccer provincials, special programs growing in number, and the volunteer base also picking up new faces.
“It’s great to see so many parents stepping forward to help,” said Adam Khong, RUFC board member and volunteer coordinator.
“We reached out to families to have more involvement with events like this, and they really stepped up. We’ve had parents and kids coming up and offering their help on the day which was unexpected and really great to see. It really helps make this group a family when folks give their time, and you can see new friendships forming.”
One of the new programs taking root at RUFC is Seniors Walking Soccer, on Wednesday mornings at 10am at Minoru Oval. In partnership with the Minoru Seniors Centre and created to help 55+ residents and those rehabbing injuries ease back into sport, the program has been going for six weeks and has been getting rave reviews from players.
“We talk a lot abnout instilling a ‘cradle to grave’ love of football at RUFC,” says program coordinator Chris Parry. “So we thought it was time we expanded our offerings to more members of the Richmond family.”
Participants spend an hour playing a low impact version of the game, with five or six-a-side following ‘no running’ rule that is heavy on laughs and low on aggression.
“We sometimes have to remind folks to slow it down, but that just shows you how much the players are into it,” says Parry.
Richmond United FC sponsors Sandhar Trucking have contributed to keep the program free of charge for players.
Reporter