Omonia Youth FC 2023 Presentation Day
September 28, 2023
Community football club Omonia Youth FC, sponsored by Diamond Corp. Ltd Spector, celebrated the formal end of the 2022/23 youth football season with their traditional annual Presentation Day. The event took place at the Radiomarathon Centre in Enfield on Sunday 2 July.
Over the course of the day, every young footballer at the club was rewarded for their efforts during the season, as team managers and coaches were given the opportunity to review the season with their players and their families. The weather was very kind to the club and in lovely sunshine, over 300 young footballers celebrated their season’s achievements with their team. In addition there were individual awards for Top Goalscorer, Most Improved Player, a Sportsmanship award, Players Player of the Year and Managers Player of the Year.
The annual event is also an opportunity for the club to come together as one and there are specific, historical club awards that are also awarded:
The Andreas Kyprianou Top Goalscorer Award was this year awarded for the first time to one of the club’s girl footballers, Shekhinah Gitu, who scored an amazing 46 goals for the Under 15 Girls them. The award is named after former Omonia Youth FC player and son of former chairman Kypros Kyprianou. The award was named after Andreas as he had completely dominated the award during his 10 years at the club.
The club also rewards the goalkeeper who over the course of the season keeps the most clean sheets and this season the winner was Pani Yianni from the Under 14 Green. The club also award the Steven Toumbas Achievement Award and this is a very special award named in memory of one of the club’s former players, Steven Toumbas, who in December 2008 died suddenly at the tragically young age of 20 years old. Since this unfortunate and very sad time, the club decided to dedicate an annual award in memory of his name. The Steven Toumbas Achievement Award can go to any player or person associated with the club whereby nominations by managers and subsequent review by the committee will be assessed. The award winner receives an engraved silver salver to keep. Steven was a high achiever in sport, academically and also in his work life and his contribution to the club will always be remembered. This year, the Steven Toumbas award was presented to Mary Tryphona. Chairman Myri Demetriou said this:
“As one of our coaches, Mary’s efforts and commitment to the children at Omonia Youth has resulted in pretty much five girls teams being formed, through the amount of girls she has brought to the club and has also taken on the lead coaching and coordinating role for our Pan -Disability Inclusive sessions, which has led to creating teams who have played in pan-disability tournaments. All of this on top of coaching her Under 12 girls team. The amount of time and dedication she puts into ensuring all of these run smoothly is testament to the kind of person she is with a heart of gold. This is well deserved.”
Once again on the day the club hosted its annual charity coaches match in memory of Kevin Nottage, who volunteered at the club for many years which included being ‘Club Welfare Officer’ and was taken from us far too soon. His beloved wife Androulla and family attended as guests of honour and two family members joined the match too. This year the club raised an amazing £1,435 with all proceeds to go to the ‘Willow Foundation’ who provide unique and special days for young adults aged 16-40 who are living with life-threatening conditions such as cancer, motor neurone disease and cystic fibrosis. Link to donate if you wish; https://www.justgiving.com/page/kevin-nottage-memorial2023?newPage=true
The match ended in a credible 3-3 with team managers Mary Tryphona and Michael Pieri sharing the trophy.
Also on the day, the club were honoured to have The Christoforos Charity Foundation (CCF), who also attended the club’s recent girls’ tournament and who provided the bouncy castle free for all children to use on the day. During the Presentation Day the CCF provided all Omonia Youth players with a free burger and a bottle of water.
The CCF was set up by the parents of Christoforos (also known as Christopher) who sadly passed away in March 2022 as a result of cyberbullying. The CCF were recently featured in the Cypriot Newspaper Parikiaki plus news channels such as Sky News and ITV. The charity aims to help and save as many children as possible; not only from the negative impact of social media misuse, but also from harmful online content, cyber bullying and from dangerous exposure to the dark web where predators lurk, disguised behind a digital screen, trying to earn children’s trust. The Christoforos Charity Foundation wants to grow to help the well-being of children by offering FREE fun day activities. The charity believes that by children participating in these activities will help to build teamwork, communication, friendship, positive relations as well as a sense of belonging. You may ask why they do this? The answer is that the CCF want to reward children for being active and staying away from their gadgets and to instead meet up with their friends to play football. In return, the CCF ask that you look at their website www.ccfworld.org and educate children to stay safe online.
Omonia Youth FC would like to thank George and Areti (Christoforos’ parents) for setting up the foundation and for providing so many opportunities for the many young people in our community in memory of their beloved son and to continue his legacy to educate and prevent other young people and their parents from suffering the same fate.
As the day drew to a close, young footballers from different age groups enjoyed meeting each other and playing football with each other. Parents and friends of the club mingled with managers and committee members to enjoy another successful Omonia Youth FC Presentation Day.
Should you feel enthused and want to know more about Omonia Youth FC, you can contact the club at omoniayouthfootballclub@hotmail.com, via the contact page on the club’s website www.omoniayouthfc.com as well as following the club on twitter @OmoniaYouthFC and Instagram @omoniayouthfc1994.
