Football NSW Nominated for Six NSW Sports Federation Annual Awards

The six categories Football NSW were nominated in are:

*Organisation of the Year Award (Football NSW)

*NSW Official of the Year Award (Sarah Ho)

*Outstanding Media Service to NSW Sport (Tony Peters – Football Stars of Tomorrow)

*Special Recognition Award (Save our Surfaces –  S.O.S.)

*NSW Athlete of the Year with a Disability (Sam Larkings ? Cerebral Palsy Football)

*NSW Junior Athlete of the Year Award (Ellyse Perry)

Football NSW as always continued its surge towards promoting the sport in a positive fashion as for the second successive year, the states? governing football body returned an operating surplus of over one million dollars.

As a result of a better than expected financial outcome, Football NSW returned $250,000 to its members in 2007.

There was also positive news in a number of other areas such as the Football Stars of Tomorrow Program, the Save our Surfaces program and the Tip Top Coaching DVD?s where Football NSW gained a considerable amount of attention in pushing football towards the right direction.

Female official Sarah Ho had a terrific 2007 where she officiated in the Women?s World Cup in China and made the shortlist of the top 50 women?s officials for that year.

Sarah was also put on the A-League panel of officials and has thus far officiated as an assistant referee in 3 A-League Pre-Season Cup matches and 3 A-League matches.

This achievement alone has gone down in the history books in Australia as being the first ever female to officiate in an A-League match.

The hugely successful Television program ?Football Stars of Tomorrow? also had a solid 2007.

Not only was it officially endorsed by former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, but the show accumulated an average of 89,000 a week, resulting in a total viewership of just under 1.8 million.

While it was an equally productive year for Football NSW?s Save our Surfaces program which was put together due to the increasing need to better manage the turf training and playing fields. The fact that certain water restrictions, drought and limited field space had occurred which affected the quality of playing surfaces, Football NSW decided to invest back into the game by designing a program that taught coaches how to best manage their surfaces.

Promising young female footballer Ellyse Perry also gained a worthy mention after representing the Young Matildas at the AFC Championships last October.
Perry is also a NSWIS scholarship holder and is also a member of the Sydney FC team currently competing in the Women’s A-League Challenge.

Finally, NSW Cerebral Palsy Football goalkeeper Sam Larkings was also a stand-out in his category for 2007.

Having maintained that position for the past four years helping NSW win the past four National Titles, Sam was also named 2007 CPSARA Footballer of the Year last June and was also a silver medalist at the 2007 Queensland Festival of Football in October.