The Carlton Football Club has been swamped with junior footballers this week after hosting both the Multicultural and Northern Blues Schools Cup. The lightning premiership style events were the last experience for the schools involved in clubs football based programs for primary students.
 
The Northern Blues Schools Program aims to teach the basics of football, whilst incorporating themes such as teamwork, leadership, respect and exercise. Similarly, the Multicultural Schools program looks to engage newly arrived and migrant communities with a 6 week football based program.


 
On Tuesday, approximately 150 students from five local primary schools participated in the Northern Blues Schools Cup. Pascoe Vale, St Joseph’s The Worker, Westgarth, Preston West and St Pius Primary got the opportunity to compete against one another in perfect weather conditions. All teams competed well, but it was St Joseph’s the Worker Primary who narrowly won both the boys and girls competitions. Injured ruckman Shaun Hampson gave up some of his spare time to present medals to the winners and runners up of the two competitions.
 
The Multicultural Schools Cup was held on Thursday and involved approximately 240 students from 8 primary schools.



The schools involved in the round robin were Antonine College, Australian International Academy, Brunswick South West Primary, Carlton Primary, Kingswood College, Meadow Heights Primary, Our Lady’s Help of Christians and St Raphael’s Primary. Our Lady’s Help of Christians took out the girls competition and Brunswick South West Primary won the boys competition in overtime. Antonine College and Kingswood Primary were the winners of team signed jumpers which were awarded to the schools best displaying the themes of the Multicultural Schools Program; Teamwork, Respect, Harmony, Leadership and Fair Play.
 
Both lightning premierships were a huge success as fun was had by all and the students were able to continue their involvement in Australian Rules Football.