Pair starts football odyssey

Alan Kennedy | 4th June 2010

IT will be a big couple of weeks for Matthew Bell and Jeremy Thorpe as they prepare for their football odyssey.

IT will be a big couple of weeks for Matthew Bell and Jeremy Thorpe as they prepare for their football odyssey.

The pair set off today for Toowoomba for a Festival of Football, then to spend a week in Brisbane preparing for a national competition at Melbourne.

The two Rockhampton stars are members of the Queensland team that is to compete at the national championship at Melbourne.

Frenchville Sports Club sports manager Terry Kennedy is the assistant coach and manager for the state team and travels to Toowoomba to help with preparations.

He said all the preparation now was to get a national team ready for the Paralympic seven-a-side squad.

In Toowoomba, Kennedy and the players would take part in a festival of football which would begin with a Multi-Disabilities Day today, when the focus would be on demonstrating how people with a disability could still achieve goals in sport.

Kennedy said he and the players would be involved in coaching sessions and demonstrations for school children.

Tonight they will be guests at a function where Socceroos coach for the 1974 World Cup campaign, Rale Rasic, will be the guest of honour.

During the weekend the Queensland players will play matches in the Festival of Football against able-bodied over-35 teams.

For Sunday there is a training session planned.

Kennedy then returns to Rockhampton while the players remain in Brisbane to train with Brisbane Roar and play a couple practice matches before Kennedy rejoins the squad for the trip south.

“In Melbourne we play New South Wales and South Australia at Darebin International Sports Complex,” he said.

Those matches will be played on astro turf.

Following the tournament a squad will be selected to take part at a national training camp at Sydney as Australia prepares for the 2012 Paralympics to be held in London.

Kennedy said he had the assistant's role with the team before taking over coaching the state team. “It is just to learn the ropes,” he said.

Rockhampton's other star player, David Barber, was not considered for this team as he is about to tour Scotland with an Australian team.

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2010/06/04/pair-starts-football-odyssey/