Football teams from across the region will be in Surrey this weekend for the 49th annual Bronze Boot tournament.
North Surrey Minor Football hosts the annual gridiron gathering on the turf at Bear Creek Park, with both flag and full-gear games on the schedule Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 25-26).
Flag, PeeWee and Bantam games will be played Saturday, with Atom, Bantam and Midget action on Sunday.
The tournament will involve teams representing North Surrey, North Delta, Coquitlam, New Westminster, Richmond, Chilliwack, White Rock and other cities. The schedule and other details are posted at surreyfootball.com.
• RELATED STORY: North Surrey’s Bronze Boot tourney kicks off Vancouver Mainland Football League season, from 2017.
Last August, hundreds of football players of all ages sweat out the sweltering heat to compete in the prestigious Bronze Boot tourney, which serves as a proverbial kickoff to another Vancouver Mainland Football League season.
Several North Surrey teams were successful, with a handful of teams winning their respective divisions.
• RELATED STORY: A tale of good coaching at Bronze Boot tournament at Surrey’s Bear Creek Park, from 2016.
Established in 1962, North Surrey Minor Football is a non-profit association run by volunteers, with a goal “to provide a safe and structured opportunity for youth to learn competitiveness and fair play through good sportsmanship and rule awareness in either football or cheer,” according to a post on the organization’s website.
“Games are mainly on Sundays with the occasional mid-week evening game,” continues the “About NSMF” bio. “Practices are held on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Practices starts at the beginning of July and the season runs from September through mid-November with playoffs going into early December.
“NSMF has teams at all levels of minor football. These start at the flag level (ages 6-7) where the kids play a 5 on 5, non-contact ball. Next is Atom (ages 8-9) where the kids play 9-man full contact ball. From there the kids play the full 12-man ball from Peewee (ages 10-11), Junior Bantam (ages 12-13), Bantam (ages 14-15) up to and including Midget (ages 16-18).”
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