Haywards Heath College wins AOC Southern Futsal league

Haywards Heath College is celebrating after winning the AOC Southern Futsal league.

The college futsal team secured the league title with a 4-2 victory over former champions Newham College this week.

Coaches Christopher Day and Sal Issa pushed the college football academy players to enter the AOC Southern league to see how they’d do.

Christopher said: “The league involves lots of travelling, as there are no local colleges in the league, and most of our away fixtures are against inner London colleges.

“Up until this week’s final game we had won every fixture comfortably, and the players have developed rapidly as the season has progressed.”

The team are now through to the national finals in May where they play at Loughborough University against the winners of the North, East and West AOC leagues.

Christopher said: “It’s been an incredible success story as none of our players have played the game before coming to college – they now train twice a week alongside their studies, and it is massively improving their football outside of college as well.

“We also ensure the boys represent the college in the best possible way, and the feedback about this from other teams has been excellent.”

Futsal is a game similar to football, but played on a hardcourt in teams of five.

Captain Will Faulks said: “I would say that the futsal programme has improved my composure on the ball within eleven a side which has been especially noticeable. As well as this, I think that the coaching and drills that we do are very game realistic and have helped my understanding of the game”.