The NZ Under 19 Schoolboys Soccer Team will play 2 games in Songpa-gu against Boin High School on 3 October and Garak High School on 5 October as part of the first U19 Korean Tour. The games have been organised by Songpa-gu Office through the sister cities programme. One of the team’s 5 nights in Songpa-gu will be spent with the Boin Team at Boin High School.
Prior to visiting Songpa the team will spend 2 nights in Busan. The game in Busan against Bukyung High School, made possible by Auckland’s sister city relationship with Busan, has been organised by the Busan Foundation for International Activities.
Two Christchurch players Chris Fernando of Burnside High School and Ben Harris of Shirley Boys' High School were selected for the national U19 team. We wish the team all the best for the three games in Korea.
A Mainland Soccer Canterbury 16th Grade Selection Team is headed to Korea and Japan.
The Canterbury U17 representative team leaves Christchurch on 31 July and heads to Christchurch's Korean sister city Songpa-Gu, Seoul, where they will play two games. The team will spend 5 nights in Songpa, staying at the Olympic Village, before flying to Tokyo and travelling onto Ayase City on 5 August. This comes about following the recent signing of a soccer friendship agreement between Mainland Soccer and Ayase City's soccer association. The team will take part in a Soccer Festival on 7 August involving six a side games and will play their main match in Ayase City on 8 August.
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| Songpa-Gu Representative Soccer Team from Boin Information & Industrial High School |
A youth sporting exchange involving representative soccer teams from the sister cities of Christchurch, Kurashiki, Japan and Songpa-Gu, Korea, was held in Christchurch during August 1999. Fun, sport, cultural experiences and sightseeing were enjoyed by the visiting teams.
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| Christchurch U17 Representative Soccer Team |
The tournament provided a wonderful opportunity for the teams to come together in Christchurch and for the young players to experience soccer at an international level, while sharing their three differing cultural and educational experiences.
The foundation was laid for continuing youth and sporting initiatives among the three cities.
This project was voted 'Best Youth Project' of the 'Sister Cities Air New Zealand Awards 2000'.
Read the report on the 1999 Sister Cities Youth Soccer Tournament.
The report is a PDF and to view it you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin.
Please note: The PDF is 1.6MB in size and will take about 10 minutes to download on an average home connection.
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| Songpa-Gu and Christchurch soccer teams in Songpa-Gu. |
The 1999 tournament was inspired by the success in 1998 of a Christchurch Under 17 Youth Soccer Team tour to Kurashiki, Japan and Songpa-Gu in Korea.
The team, who spent three months training and fundraising, played a six aside contest in Kurashiki as well as an international game and then in Songpa-Gu the team played a Songpa-Gu Club side and a representative youth side, a game watched by thousands of local high school students.
In both Kurashiki and Songpa-Gu the boys and accompanying adults were home-hosted so were able to experience not only soccer in the international arena, but some of the culture and environment of their host countries.