WITH all the cold and wet weather continuing to plague our local teams, the Bolton, Bury and District Football League have come up with a way of keeping their youngsters active – playing futsal.

Ongoing sessions for youngsters aged seven to eight-years-old have been staged at three different venues in Bolton.

The latest round of games were held at the University of Bolton last month and included youngsters representing teams from Atherton Laburnun Rovers, Prestwich Marauders, Bury Bulldogs and Boothtown Raiders.

Other games have been held at ESSA Academy and Ladybridge High School.

Last year, league officials ran the Under-13s Warburton’s Cup and staged games for their juniors during the year and it was a huge success.

Now, they believe by getting the budding Wayne Rooneys and Gary Cahills of this world playing futsal at a younger age can only help them improve.

Futsal is a variant of football that is played on a smaller field and mainly played indoors. It can be considered a version of five-a-side football and originated from Uruguay in the 1930s.

The game is played with a smaller ball with less bounce than a regular football due to the playing surface but is credited for developing more emphasis on improvisation, creativity and technique.

Gary Russell, secretary of the league, believes the venture will only benefit the future of the game. He said: “We have stopped them playing outdoors from the end of November and decided to bring them inside until February.

“We thought it was a good idea and stop them being exposed to the horrendous conditions during winter.

“At least they can express themselves inside rather than freezing in the cold and not making that good pass or run.

“Futsal is different and encourages passing and movement and we think by developing them at a younger age we can improve their skill levels when they return to play outside and continue their season.

“It is part of our targets to grow futsal and we would love every age group to get involved until they are 13 at some point.”

Your Sport columnist Warren Barlow has been one of the biggest advocates of the sport and Gary Russell shares the view it could go some way to better equipping our players.

He said: “The feedback has been great from the teams. Some of the players want to play more games.

“We do a round-robin style event where each team gets four games in an hour.

“We feel it is so important and it has helped develop some of the big names in football such as Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo as it is played in those countries.

“We are pioneers in youth football for trying to give the kids a platform to learn new skills and become better and we hope some of them can grow into becoming better players.

“As a country we need to explore futsal and it is on the FA’s agenda and we are behind other nations such as Brazil who have their own teams playing it.

“More and more people are talking about it and we have good links with the Manchester Futsal Club as they have some fantastic facilities there at the Velodrome.

“We are talking about more of the technical side of the game and improving the touch of our players and not hitting it too long.

“Once the kids have completed the 10-week sessions then they will play on 3G again.

“In the long term the plan is once we have done this then we can explore other age-groups and getting them playing the sport.”

n If you want to find out more, call Gary on 07771 741899.