A girls’ football team from Sanhe Town Primary School in Shizhu Tujia Autonomous County, Chongqing won their reward after winning the second Wind Chaser League finals in October last year – a five-day football “special training” in Wuhan. "course.
Wuhan is the hometown of Chinese female football player Wang Shuang, and this "special training" was also at Wang Shuang's invitation. "I heard that these girls were the champions of the second Storm Chaser League finals, and one of the rewards for the championship was a 'special training camp,' so I thought I could do something for them and invited them to come to my hometown to watch. Take a look and play."
Chasing the Wind Project is a rural campus women's football support project launched by the Ant Charity Foundation. In order to successfully organize this football "special training", the Football Sports Management Center of the Hubei Provincial Sports Bureau specially invited Wang Hong, technical consultant of the Office of the National Football Development Key Cities Leading Group Office of the Chinese Football Association, as the general guide. Former Chinese women's football player, Chinese Football Association A-level Coach Yue Min serves as the head coach.
Lin Wenjing, a fourth-grade student from Sanhe Town Primary School, is affectionately called "Little Apple" because her face is always red.
"Little Apple" has been training for two years. He is fast and agile on the court, which puts a lot of pressure on his opponents. He has also gained many "fans" off the court. Like her teammates, she is hardworking, cooperative, cheerful, and generous.
"Routudu" is also a star player on the field. Although her face is covered with baby fat, her last kick helped the team even the score in the competition.
Head coach Yue Min couldn't help but praise these children, "The skills of these children are very good, and you can tell at a glance that they have worked hard."
Sanhe Town Primary School in Shizhu County, Chongqing is located in the mountains of Chongqing. In 2022, the school was selected into the Alipay "Chasing the Storm Plan" launched by the Ant Charity Foundation. In October last year, in the second Chasing League finals, they stood out from more than 60 rural campus women's football teams across the country and won the cup, winning the first national championship in the team's 10 years of developing campus women's football teams.
What kind of changes will a rural campus football team bring to the children?
In 2013, Shizhu County proposed to create “one school, one characteristic”. Sun Xiaoming, who was the principal of Sanhe Town Primary School at the time, suggested the establishment of a women's football team.
Why women's football? Liu Kaixue, deputy principal of Sanhe Town Primary School in Shizhu County, Chongqing City, explained, “Both basketball and volleyball have height requirements, and the average height of children in mountainous areas is shorter than that of children in urban areas, so they do not have an advantage. Football has lower height requirements and requires endurance and willpower. The strength requirements are high, which is the advantage of children from mountainous areas."
But it is not easy to build a football team from scratch. The school has no football field, no funding, and not even a coach. "The old principal is very persistent. He has set a goal and will do everything possible to achieve it." Liu Kaixue said that if there is no football field, he will play on the cement floor first; if there is no funding, he will save from other funds; if there is no coach, he will just play football on the concrete floor. Send your school's physical education teachers out for training and then come back to teach students.
The biggest resistance comes from the hesitation of parents: Will their children get tanned? Will it affect academic performance? "When the old principal saw a student with potential, he would not hesitate to visit the thatched cottage four, five, six, seven, eight times... until the parents' ideological work was solved."
In 2015, Chongqing held a campus football league. In the finals, the "left-behind children" girls' football team of this little-known township primary school in Shizhu County actually defeated the traditional strong team Datianwan Primary School girls' football team and won the championship.
This is the first time that the Sanhe Town Primary School football team has won the championship. Most girls in rural areas go out to work or get married early, and football has changed the life trajectory of these children. Liu Kaixue introduced that after graduation, the football team members of Sanhe Town Primary School were all sent to schools in the main urban area of Chongqing, and 29 of them became national first-class athletes. Among the 20 members of the first batch of team members, 19 were admitted to well-known universities such as Tongji University, Beijing Sport University, and Shanghai Institute of Sport. The impact of
football does not end there.
"Football makes children stronger willpower and they learn to overcome difficulties first." Liu Kaixue told an example.A girl who graduated from the football team of Sanhe Town Primary School was not admitted in the 2022 college entrance examination because her application form was too high. Her family could not afford to repeat her studies. The girl is determined to follow the school schedule at home, study cultural classes independently, and participate in football training after studying. After a year of self-discipline, the girl was finally admitted to her favorite college in 2023.
"In the past few years, we have seen that many girls have gone to better junior high schools and even better universities because of football. The core concern in rural areas is the passage to higher education, and many girls stop playing in junior high schools. We are exploring ways to open up From primary school, junior high school to high school, we hope to promote the physical and mental development of rural girls through football and help them obtain more diverse opportunities." said Wang Lingling, deputy secretary-general of the Ant Charity Foundation.
Jiupai News reporter Chai Gui
[Source: Jiupai News]
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