ELITE PLAYER FOOTBALL PROGRAMME AT BRAEBURN – the team play their first match and win 12-3

The Elite Player Football Programme headed up by UEFA and CAF qualified coach Tim Bryett is run in partnership with Braeburn School and offers the opportunity for students to pursue their ambitions of becoming a professional footballer while at the same time excelling in their educational goals.

Tim Bryett comes with a wealth of experience from coaching in the Kenyan Premier League, Brazil and English Academies and working with professional and national team players in areas of tactical, technical and conditioning.

The programme offers the players an opportunity to experience what it is like to train like a professional player under the close guidance of their coach. However, to qualify to join the programme each player must excel in school, in their behaviour, attitude, homework, time keeping and commitment to their studies. This is to ensure that the players build a solid education to give them good future prospects if they don’t quite make the right level as a player.

Captain Arthur stated:
Why don’t many African Footballers make it in Europe? I have lived in Kenya and Egypt, and had the chance to see raw talent and young boys full of potential and desire to make it in the big leagues.
We lack one major key to success, practice. Statistics show that to reach the level of a professional footballer you must have practiced many hours at a high level from a young age while receiving top coaching. When I look at the average Kenyan player who would like to pursue football, they don’t get that opportunity until this programme started.

Braeburn has been known for is great sporting accolades, but what about those who want to pursue sports as a career? With the TB Academy working with Braeburn School, we are experiencing what it takes to train regularly during the week while striving for a top education. Although this isn’t a youth team in Europe, it is a step closer to achieving the dreams that many of us have of becoming footballers.
The programme started in February 2016 and our training has been fruitful as last weekend we played our first match against the new trialists starting the same programme at BGE and won 12-3. These are the first signs of our progress and, who knows, one day you might be watching us on TV.

Assistant Captain Lucas describes the first match:
The match started slightly delayed at 1:45 and it was a challenging first half for us as the BGE trialists were trying to prove why they should join the programme and making it difficult to get through the middle. In the first half we only managed two goals from Andrew and Arthur. BGE scored from just outside the box making the score in the first half 2-1 to us. At half time we had a talk with Coach Tim Bryett and we saw our mistakes and how to improve them. The second half was a more entertaining half as we settled into our strategy and went on to score ten goals and conceded two making the final score a 12-3 win. The final goal scorers were, Andrew 5, Arthur 3, Arthur 2, Lucas 2. BGE played very well but the level of training eventually showed as we managed to break them down. There were remarkable performances from Mohamed and Andrew. It was a very exciting first match and a very good experience for all of us.