NOW

the official magazine of Karma FC

What is more than football?

Page 4

Football vs Study Page 7

Issue One Winter 10/11

MAG

AZ

INE

Ravi Agravat, giving a de-brief at the end of a game

A year on... Dear Friends, Families and Players,

It’s been just over a year since Karma FC was started. It was a relatively simple decision to make since there wasn’t a football club in Hamilton; an area with a growing population. We’ve made it through the rain, snow and beating sun. Players have grown, trained hard and have been rewarded with the opportunity to play in a competitive league. Okay the results haven’t been the best but what can we expect? In our squad we have 12 players that have never played competitive football before; we have four players that have played football at a high level of standard and five that were just interested in playing football. We’ve done remarkably well! However, it is important not to become complacent. Although we have played established teams who have players playing since the age of 13 and have at least four years of experience of playing the game, we still have a lot more work to do to reach our true potential. We have managed to gain points and managed to scare a lot of teams with our surprising performanc-es. Just to mention: We showed true character against Westfield Wanderers, the score line 3-0 at halftime and then brought it to 3-3, then to be down to ten men and trailing 4-3, with literally the last kick of the game, we brought the game level to 4-4. We can say we’ve learnt a tremendous amount in this half of the season and we, the management committee, are very excited to see the second half of the season’s growth. We are at a stage now where the club is continuing to grow and now attract-ing 30 regular players in both age groups: U15’s and U17’s. We are soon to start off Karma Boys U13’s, U11’s, U9’s and Karma Girls Youth Academies U13’s and U9’s.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

V.samaniVikesh Samani,Head Coach & Club Welfare Officer

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Football is evolving and so is technology. The way we live our lives nowadays involves some interaction with the internet. We buy goods, speak to friends, post our thoughts and ideas, and find information on the internet.

Many of us have a Facebook account but the real question is how many of us use it to its full potential? Yes we use it to poke people, give gifts, and chat to our friends who, by the way, we spoke to at school only 50 minutes ago.

Facebook and other social networking web-sites are infiltrating our lives even further now and the influence of these sites is growing at an exponential rate. We have seen many young

Every wall post, comment, status, picture and profile is traceable

without intention. We need to be careful/ cautious of what we post and write on such websites as more and more of us start to make private information public and this includes our thoughts and opinions.

How can we use these websites in a positive way?

people harness its power to share, commu-nicate and spread news to their friends more easily. However we have also seen the misrep-resentation of these young people, conveyed by their profiles, increase.

Short blog posts and comments on Facebook can easily be misunderstood and present harm

INTERNET: STAY SAFE

www.karmafc.com

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Karma’s Top Social Networking Tips:

Join groups that relate to your area or industry/subject i.e. “Chemistry Notes” as this will help you discuss similar prob-lems you are having with others who may be facing the same issues. Also this will impress any college enrolment tutors, em-ployers or university enrolment tutors who may look at your profile page.

Upload images that show you in a good light, i.e. if you aim to become a professional footballer then a picture of you in a football match will help you out if any scouts see your profile page.

You do not need to post every single thought - only post those that provide information.

Refrain from entering offensive language on your profile page, as this will help you build a positive image for any college en-rolment tutors, employers or university enrolment tutors.

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Under 17’s players: Rajen Mistry and Reiss Jhamat

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WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM FOOTBALL OTHER THAN FOOTBALLFootball is a game of two teams.

Ronaldo, super-stardom, exciting, fun, fast cars, global fame, £100,000-a-week salaries, are all words and phrases associ-ated with Football. The glitz and glamour attracts masses to the game but only a few reach high enough to live to that status, as a lavish footballer.

But what if key words such as teamwork, communication, friendship, success and how to deal with failure were heavily promoted at a grass roots level, what then?

Certainly we can all agree winning is important; it’s what we strive for and what drives our inner being. But is winning a Football game the end goal?

If winning as a team is heavily promoted then you start to create motivated leaders, those that will not only inspire others but also learn the ability to influence their team members. >

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Team workWhen playing a team sport, you no longer think about yourself, you have to blend into the team and no more are your efforts indi-vidual, but rather collective. This is not Tennis, where it’s only yourself and the opponent. You need to help bring out the best in others but why is this important? When you’re at school/college/university/work you’re most likely to be working within a team and at times you will need to cohesively explore ideas/problems/work to reach your end goal.

Tip: In school you’re in a class of 10+. See this as your team and that you need to help and use each other to get the best grade possible, as someone may find something you find difficult, relatively easy and vice versa.

MotivationWhy do we feel motivated to play Football? Why do we feel like waking up early on a Sat-urday morning even though we do not have to and can be sleeping in bed? In contrast, why, if we had the choice, would we rather lie in and not got to school?The difference is ‘passion’. Your enjoyment, the atmosphere and the chance to be part of something greater keeps you coming back. This skill is valuable and when you understand the power of it and utilise it, you will see the changes and reap the rewards.

Tip: At school, if you have a ‘boring’ subject, try to link it to Football, which you’re passionate about. For example, if you’re learning accounts, try to read and explore published accounts of a Premiership Football Club.

The transferability of skills is promoted at Karma FC. The Football game is your testing ground. It is a platform to experience what it’s like to fail but still win, here’s how we do it:

www.karmafc.com

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CommunictionOn a Football pitch, there are 22 players but only one ball. Only one player can have the ball at any one time. This means that they hold the power to execute some sort of action with the ball. However, there are many choices to make and with each second that goes by, time is run-ning out and a decision needs to be made. This is where it’s up to the team around the player to advise the best option. Communication can be conveyed through words, hand gestures and eye contact.

Tip: It’s important not to ‘force’ your idea on others or come across as aggressive. Your role within a team is to correctly inform or provide counsel to the person who possesses the decision making power at the relevant time. For example in a Football match, you have the ball at your feet, someone calls “line” another calls “square” and another calls “man on”. It’s your responsibil-ity to quickly analyse the situation and make the best decision. After realising that the person who shouted “line” is making a good run, you decide to pass the ball to them. Apply the same tech-nique in a situation where you’re at school and part of the student newspaper team. The person who holds the power at this time is the editor. They say the theme for this month is Christmas; you then say your idea is to cover an article on What is Santa Clause? However the editor replies “Sorry, this is a newspaper for students and they won’t read such an article”. You realise that the editor has misunderstood your idea. In your mind you wanted to cover an angle on Santa Clause but more on ‘Why Santa Clause is important to young children and the importance of it’.

Communication is often misunderstood, so prac-tice speaking out your ideas and see if people can actually explain your idea back as you thought.

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The link between football and academic studying:

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It came to the point when GCSE examinations and general end of year exams were dawning that the priority of attending football sessions became lower and lower. Parents and players were seeing football as a distraction at that time (even though it was Sunday morning 9.30am), and as a result we had to stop the training sessions.

Fearing we would lose the momentum, the idea came to mind that we should utilise the training time to further our studies, as we already had an established routine on Sunday mornings.

In Spring 2010, we piloted Student Support Sessions (SSS) to find out if it is beneficial to provide an environment for players to study together. Not to teach any material but to facilitate and guide learning.

Funnily enough we attracted up to 20 young players, who all brought their own homework and material, enough for the two and a half hour sessions. One player described it as, “If I was at home right now I’d probably be sleep-ing. At least this provides me the opportunity to get my work done in the morning and enjoy the rest of my Sunday afternoon.”

It was a great experience for all who attended. In total, we completed eight SSS and were very pleased to find out the academic results of the players in September 2010. We would like to think that the SSS helped to achieve those fantastic grades.

Due to its success, we are soon to introduce fortnightly SSS on Thursday evenings and this will be open to U15 and U17 players. You will receive information about this soon in the post and on the Karma FC website, under the Academic section.

www.karmafc.com

We play together, we win

together and we lose

together.

Why not also study

together?

The link between football and academic studying:

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Going forward...Is it important that the NOW Magazine is kept advert free? Is it important that we continue to put the effort and time in to producing such a magazine? And is it important that we do not charge any player or parent to receive our magazine?

Hopefully you agree with us too. We want to keep the magazine advert and cost free, but we are only able to do so thanks to our kind donators. It costs us £250 to publish each issue including print, design and distribution.

This issue was fully funded by UnLtd Sport Relief

If you would like to fund in part or full towards the next issue, please do not hesitate to con-tact our treasurer at seema.bilimoria@gmail.com or 07545471197.

Credits:Editor: Ravi AgravatCopywriter: Aashish Parmar

Design by Simple LeicesterFront Cover Photography by Seema Bilimoria

NOW Magazine is published by Karma FC. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms or by means, electronic, mechanical, print, recording, or otherwise,

without the prior permission of Karma FC.