Hawkwell Athletic Narrowly Miss Out In Two Categories
With the club nominated for Community Sports Club of the Year and Steve Dowding nominated fo a Services to Sport award, the mood was high as we sat down to await the announcement of our category winners. Unfortunately we didn't win our categories but did receive a Highly Recommended award in both.
When receiving his Highly Recommended Award in the Services to Sport category, Steve Dowding gave the following interview to BBC Essex Sport Presenter Caroline Barker.
CB (BBC Essex) "Steve, tell us a bit about your role"
SD (HAFC) "Mainly it's paperwork really, and that's the thing I do well I think... but it gets me away from what I really want to be doing and that's coaching for young players. Fortunately I've got a lot of good coaches in the club, over 50 in fact, coaching the children but that's also what I want to be doing."
CB (BBC Essex) "I know paperwork is a headache and a lot is being done to computerise things, but aside from that, the coaches that are coming through, you must be proud of the talent that you are bringing through as well?"
SD (HAFC) "Oh certainly, I mean we've got youngsters coming through, we talk to our players to put them through coaching courses and referee courses. We are trying to get as much as we can out into the community. I'm looking everywhere for funding, because £1,000 of funded money gets me 6 newly qualified coaches.
We've already got over 50 FA Level 1 coaches, 7 FA Level 2 and 2 FA Level 3 coaches in the club. We are now getting involved more and more with local schools and the Academy Enterprise Trust in our local area to try to get even more coaches involved."