FIVE up and coming young Bermuda football players will get the chance to travel to Reading, Pennsylvania this summer to play in the Super Y League with the Rage. This comes on the heels of a second coaching course staged earlier this month in Bermuda by Rage head coach and Academy Director Derek Broadley along with goalkeeping coach Vic Bettinelli who is with Fulham from the English Premier League.Broadley has previously been to Bermuda to conduct the Soccer-Expert Course Level One and he returned this year for the Soccer-Expert Course Level Two.

It now looks like the relationship between Bermuda and the Rage will be a permanent one as at the beginning of the year Bermuda Football Foundation founders and directors Richard and Robert Calderon along with former West Ham striker and Mid-Ocean News columnist Clyde Best purchased a 30 percent stake in the Rage Soccer Club.

Richard Calderon, the secretary of the BFF, said this week: “In our attempt to assist with exposing youth players to US college and university coaches, the BFF directors who include Clyde, Robert and myself, purchased a 30 percent stake in the Rage Soccer Club. The purchase was completed in January this year and we immediately started planning for five to 10 kids between the ages of 13 and 17 to participate in the Rage’s Super Y league teams in the summer of 2007.” Broadley, who recently left Bermuda to return to Pennsylvania after conducting the coaching course, said: “The idea of the Rage getting involved here in Bermuda is to give some people the opportunity to come over Pennsylvania and play in the Super Y League which is a development league for the United Soccer League (which includes the Bermuda Hogges in Division 2).“My relationship with Richard and the BFF is good and this will be a great opportunity for these young kids.”

Broadley said he is always on the lookout for the best young players and he hopes a number will come from Bermuda in the future.

Best said this week: “We want to give something back — we want to help our young players. I have had my time and now it is time for the younger people. But it is up to them to take it and do the best they can do and really apply themselves.”

And Best also said he hoped Bermuda’s coaches would take advantage of the courses being given by Broadley who was the Academy Director of Crystal Palace in England before moving to the United States a few years ago.

“We are doing this only to see the game get better in Bermuda — nothing more than that. And I hope the coaches here take advantage of the courses. Any coach who says he knows it all should get out of the game. There is always more you can learn,” said Best who added that with young Bermuda players going to the Rage this summer it is a chance to get noticed by university and college scouts. “Football can pay for an education. And then perhaps those players may make the grade to go professional. That is where we in Bermuda must go if we are to advance in the game.”

Broadley said of getting noticed by college scouts: “Quite frankly we are finding that a lot of college coaches are watching the Super Y League games for recruitment. And also in the Super Y League there are a lot of coaches who have college status.”

Calderon said: “The Rage Soccer Club is an evolution and integration of the Reading Rage Super Y League and PDL League programme and the Reading Soccer Club programmes. In essence the Rage Soccer Club provides aspiring players with an opportunity to be introduced to the game in a structured way from the age of four years old and depending on each kid’s development, an opportunity to play regular club league football and for the most promising an opportunity to compete with the Rage’s Super Y league summer programme.

“The Rage have a mini academy that caters to boys and girls between the ages of four and eight. The youth academy caters to players up to 16 and there are boys and girls teams between the ages of nine and 16.

“There is a Super Y league programme that caters to the most promising players — both boys and girls from their youth academy and from other club programmes between the ages of 13 and 17 and the Rage offers nine boys and girls teams and a U-20 men’s and women’s team that compete in the PDL. The PDL is the USL’s Professional Development League, which caters to college players.”

And Calderon said that the Super Y League caters to the best young players.

“The Super Y League is where the top one to two percent of America’s youth players compete in a National League. The league is split into regions and finishes with a National Championship. The Rage teams participate in the Mid Atlantic Division which includes two MLS youth academy teams, DC United and the Red Bulls.”

The five young Bermudians who will travel to Reading this summer are Shonte’ Campbell, Mikkail Crockwell, Damali Bell and Drewondie Bascome all from the Berkeley Institute along with Nelson Smith from Warwick Academy.

Calderon said that funding for the trip was “secured through the very generous assistance from the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and via work programmes”.

He added: “The BFF strongly believe that kids must contribute in some small way and by that we don’t mean via the wallets of their parents and or guardians. The BFF secured 40 hour work programmes for all five kids, with three working the entire Easter break and two working five Saturdays. This was done through the kind support received from SAL, BGA, Hamilton Pharmacy, DAO and Correia Construction.

“In the end, funding has been secured to cover all expenses to include airfares, housing, sustenance, Super Y league fees, all training and playing gear to include warm-up suits and all travel expenses with the teams. All they will need to bring is pocket money. We didn’t want money to be the deterrent to them going up to Reading.”

And Calderon said the trip this summer was not only about football. “We see this as so much more than just football. Of course football will be their main focus, however this will provide these kids with opportunities to experience another culture and socialise in new environments. They will live with players on their respective teams which will provide another learning experience. They will socialise, play, eat, travel and just plain interact with new people, which we believe will help in their maturation and at the same time, provide loads of fun.”

Broadley said the programme at the Rage has also expanded by linking up with Fulham from the Premiership.

“Now that Vic has been here a lot of kids want to come to Reading because of Fulham. Vic has also taken three kids to Fulham — the club has picked up the tabs and housed them.

“We realise that once that word gets out kids will want to come to the Rage.

“But I am not going to use Fulham as a marketing tool because everyone in the US will believe that if they come to the Rage they will go to Fulham. And that is not the case.”

Broadley said that the Rage are also trying to establish a USL Division 2 team.

“We have been very successful at the Super Y League. We have had seven teams have qualify for the nationals and we now have teams competing at the national level.

“It is the stepping stone to go into USL.”

Of the coaching course given by Broadley when he was here Calderon said: “The numbers were consistent —18 signed for the course and 14 participated.

“We could have accommodated 20 but in the end we are starting to see a trend as there are at least seven youth coaches that are consistent consumers of this information.”

One local coach who always stands out for Calderon when courses are offered is Andrew Bascome. “It’s no surprise that Andrew Bascome is in my estimation the island’s best coach because he always takes advantage of an opportunity to learn about this game,” said the BFF secretary.

And the course was free for up to 20 youth coaches. “Again that was through the generous sponsorship of the Bank of Bermuda Foundation,” said Calderon. “We added Vic Bettinelli, Fulham’s goalkeeping coach, to this course and the sessions were first class.”

And by working with Fulham’s Bettinelli, Calderon hopes to forge more links with the Premiership club.

“The opportunity to spend time with Vic will more than likely lead to Fulham’s Under 15 team participating in our February Clyde Best Invitational tournament.

“We await final Fulham requirements and it will certainly result in a local coach spending few weeks with their Academy and first team coaches later this year. That will not be unlike the Scott Morton’s 12 days stay at Clairefontaine and FC Sochaux last September.”

Morton’s visit to France came after acclaimed French coach Jacques Crevoisier came to Bermuda to conduct a course.

Asked if Crevoisier will be returning to the island for more courses, Calderon said: “We had to cancell plans for February this year because it would have coincided with the Clyde Best Invitational Tournament — we couldn’t handle both at the same time.

“That being said, we are in the advanced stages of producing a three-day clinic on the US east coast with Jacques. Of course this will be open to any of the island’s youth coaches. Our partners in the US are confident, based on their previous experience, that hundreds of their youth coaches will pay for the experience of learning from Jacques.”