By RENALDO DORSETT
Sports Reporter
rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
QUALITY Beach Soccer Club continued its effort in the local development of the sport when they hosted a signing day for club players who will participate in various events, representing both the club and the country.
Players were signed to the Women’s, Men’s Pro-Am and under-16 boys’ teams which will compete at the North American Sand Soccer Championships in Virginia Beach, Virginia, June 7-9 and the US Open which will feature international teams such as CD Nacional from Portugal, Team Canada, Prado Junior Futbol from Brazil and Vision Sports Dakar from Senegal.
The club, founded by national team members Ehren Hanna and Christopher Davis, said they found it fitting to pay tribute to the under-16 boys’ side, which is an integral part of the club’s development.
“It was an opportunity to thank our sponsors for their generosity over the past few years since we have incorporated and also to unveil our under-16 boys team who have been doing really, really well in the last few months, particularly in the last few weeks. We just wanted to put them on a pedestal and get their names out there with this signing,” Davis said.
“This is our first signing day held by Quality Beach Soccer Club and to put it in perspective for a lot of people we wanted it to be similar to the NBA draft or the NFL draft where people come in and sign publicly to let the whole nation know. We look at it like that because when we travel to play we are not just representing QBS, we are actually representing the nation. Right now there are about 16 kids on the team and we are accepting more because we would love to send two teams to travel.”
Davis said he is optimistic about the performance of the junior side based on their improvement, recently on display against an elite programme out of the United States.
“We have several of the players who participated in our first summer camp and the improvements that I have seen have been great. The future is extremely bright in beach soccer and as a goalie I can tell you these kids give me a push with how much they have developed,” he said.
“Recently we played an exhibition against a school called St Steven’s. That is a school where we usually send our top level kids from the Bahamas, they have a Bahamian player there now. They played them in the grass and we lost 4-1 but then they played them in the sand and won 4-1.”
Fourteen-year-old striker Jaime Thompson, a four-year beach soccer veteran, was one of the signees to QBSC.
“It’s quite exciting to know that they believe that young players like us are able to show our talent in beach soccer rather than grass soccer and it is good to know that they believe that we can make it a long way in the sport,” he said. “Our first tournament as a club will be at Virginia Beach in June and we are so excited to get out there and show what we can do.”
Chad Russell, a 15-year-old centre midfielder, was another signee to the programme. “I recently started playing beach soccer in January when coach Hanna encouraged me to get into the game because he said it would improve my touch,” he said. “I prefer field soccer honestly but at times beach soccer is more entertaining and fun. It is great to be a part of the team. It is a really friendly, warm environment, everyone is kind and I love being a part of the team.”
Davis said the expanding junior programme will serve as a feeder system to the national team which has achieved great levels of success in a short timespan.
“One of the things it does is it makes the r�sum�s of the players more impressive as well. We have seen that that is a big problem we have had here because when they attempt to play outside the Bahamas they are paired up against players with very extensive r�sum�s. Obviously the ultimate goal is also to get the younger kids off to school but when they come back we also find that people get kind of stagnant with the game so we are trying to keep it going and develop the sport and continue the successes that happened with the national team which was ranked number one in the Caribbean. We were also recently ranked No.44 in beach soccer worldwide. So that should put things in perspective with the potential of this sport in the country,” he said.
Products of the programme also continue to excel at the international level. “We have a young guy named Valin Bodie who was signed by a professional under-18 level team called FA Euro. He went to Italy in January and played in a tournament with the likes of Mario Balotelli, Guiseppe Rossi, all of these top level players who now play for the Italian national team. He played in that tournament and now he is a full-fledged player with the under-18 squad because of how well he performed. As a young goalkeeper he is a promising player on the rise,” Davis said.
“We have other senior guys like Gary Jospeh who are creating opportunities. When we played at the Major Beach Soccer Championships in Clearwater Beach, he garnered a lot of attention and pretty much every scout that was out there approached us about his availability. This was a guy who just started playing beach soccer about four or five years ago. To see his transformation from then to now has been amazing.”
Club sponsors include Fourth Terrace Diagnostic Centre, Bahamasair, Grant Thornton, Physicians Alliance, Xpress It, Heavy Marine and Foundation, Ehren’s Grooming Center, Delucci Jewelry, Sapphire Venture Fund, Bond’s Cay, Bahamas Orthodontic Centre, 5ive Star Snorkeling, Davis & Co, Colina, Bahamian Paint, Mogul-by Ehren’s Grooming Center, Bahamas HomeAway, Bahamas Equity Trust, Stale-O-Force Pictures and St Christopher’s Anglican Church.
Hanna said QBSC can be contacted at qualitybeachsoccerclub@gmail.com, visited at www.qualitybeachsoccer.com or phoned at 698-1032.
The club is scheduled to host a Steak Out on May 3 to raise funds for the Virginia Beach Tournament.
Hanna said the club will also use the opportunity to thank the parents of the players, and BFA executives, namely Fred Lunn, Anton Sealey, Millicent Darville-Smith and Trevor Rolle.
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