Investigation on the Development of County Football in Zhuozhou City

Many venues, many fans, many matches-Zhuozhou County Football Development Survey

In recent years, the strong football atmosphere in Zhuozhou has made more and more young people fall in love with football. The picture shows the city’s campus football game is in progress.Photo courtesy of Zhuozhou City Education and Sports Bureau

The National Fitness Plan (2021-2025) issued by the State Council recently proposed to promote the popularization of county football. Previously, the State Sports General Administration announced 101 national county football models, and Zhuozhou City is one of the three selected places in our province. The reporter learned that the city has many football venues, a large football population, and many football matches. So, how did the city and county football develop?

Make up for shortcomings

Consolidate the foundation of football development

At 21:20 on July 14, the weather was sultry, but the five-a-side football field of Zhuozhou Sports Factory was brightly lit. 10 football fans came and went, and the fierce battle was going on.

“It was originally an idle factory building of an enterprise. It has been transformed into a fitness venue covering multiple sports, including this five-a-side illuminated football field, which effectively meets the needs of nearby football enthusiasts for playing and fitness.” Zhuozhou Wang Zepei, deputy director of the Municipal Education and Sports Bureau, said.

For a long time, issues such as venues, teachers and funds have been the bottleneck that has plagued the development of county football. A few years ago, most primary and secondary schools in Zhuozhou used “earth playgrounds”. In 2015, the “Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of Chinese Football” was released, and campus football became a breakthrough and experimental field for the reform of school sports. Since 2018, Zhuozhou City has invested 103.5 million yuan in the construction of football stadiums for 28 special football schools. In addition, during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the city attracted the active participation of social forces and completed the construction of 11 social football venues.

“We have achieved the goal of “National Football Stadium Facilities Construction Plan (2016-2020)” of’average of more than 0.5 yuan per 10,000 people’ and’at least two social standard football venues’.” Wang Zepei said.

If there is a place to play football, someone needs to be taught.

Zhang Shuna, Section Chief of Sports Engineering, Zhuozhou City Education and Sports Bureau, introduced that in 2018 and 2019, Zhuozhou City completed the full coverage of the city’s football teacher training, with 1,200 people receiving special football training, and some of them went abroad for training to promote primary and secondary schools. The popularization of campus football has laid a foundation for talents. In addition, starting in 2018, Zhuozhou City has established a resource bank of football experts including university experts and referees from the Super League to provide regular guidance for the city’s football development.

Social forces cannot be ignored. “We have coach resources, and the school has venue resources.” said Wang Chaohe, the head coach of Zhuozhou Lvyin Morningstar Football Club. On the one hand, they cooperated with Shuangta Middle School and Xiding Primary School and sent professional coaches to help the school develop the second classroom to popularize football. , To make up for the school’s lack of professional coaches; on the one hand, use the school’s spare field resources for amateur training to increase the social football population.

In order to promote the development of campus football, since 2015, Zhuozhou City has been financially funded to purchase football teaching materials and footballs for the city’s students, ensuring that physical education teachers have one football teaching material and students in football lessons. A total of 200 will be invested in 2015 and 2016. More than 10,000 yuan, increased to 5 million yuan in 2017. In 2018, the city invested more than one million yuan in football leagues and football competitions at all levels. In 2019, the city invested another 5 million yuan to purchase 43 kinds of facilities and equipment required for campus football teaching, training and competition.

Why does Zhuozhou have so many “big plans” for the development of county football? It is understood that the Zhuozhou Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government attach great importance to the development of county football, including it in the city’s economic and social development plan and included in the annual work points. The city has also established a campus football work leadership group led by the deputy mayor in charge, the Municipal Education and Sports Bureau, the Development and Reform Bureau, the Finance Bureau, the Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism Bureau and other relevant units and school principals as members, and regularly convenes the city’s campuses The joint meeting of football work, special research on the development of county football in the city, provides an important guarantee for the development of county football.

Make up for shortcomings and show results. Zhuozhou City was not only rated as the “Excellent Pilot County of Campus Football in Hebei Province”, it also organized and hosted the campus football work meeting in Hebei Province in December 2018. In 2020, it successfully passed the review of the national campus football pilot counties.

Event-driven

Drive football to speed up

“It’s a pity. If we hadn’t had an own goal, we could have won the championship, but now we can only finish second.” On the afternoon of July 13, Zhao Yunqing, an 11-year-old fifth-grade student of Zhuozhou City Bilingual School, was interviewed by reporters. Still regretting the school’s women’s football results in the final of the women’s group of the municipal school football league elementary school.

Zhao Yunqing won the Women’s 8-year-old World Championship of the Youth Chess World Championship in 2018. Due to the long time-consuming chess competition and lack of physical fitness, she began to participate in the school football interest group that year and practice football. Now, Zhao Yunqing has not only become the captain of the women’s football team of Zhuozhou City Bilingual School, but also has improved academic performance and chess skills.

“The fighting spirit, team spirit, and awareness of rules in football are all very good education, and children benefit a lot.” Zhao Yunqing’s mother Zhang Xueqin said.

Beginning in 2016, Zhuozhou City Bilingual School launched a football grade league in which all grades participated. Driven by the competition, more and more students participated in football. “In the past, it was difficult to get all 11 members of the women’s football team, but now it has to go through several rounds of selection.” Liu Yang, the vice principal of the school, said, “We can form at least two women’s football teams in each class.”

Zhuozhou City has established more than 300 campus football clubs or football interest groups with the focus on campus football characteristic schools, and regularly organizes class, school and municipal campus football leagues. Among them, the number of participating teams in the Zhuozhou Campus Football League has increased from 25 in 2015 to the current 101. The number of participants has also increased from more than 200 to more than 1,000, and the number of competition activities has reached 557.

“Now, every football school has its own star team, cheerleader team, and each class has its own class team.” Zhang Shuna said that there are thousands of campus football events in the city every year, directly driving more than 50,000 people. Students participate in football. In recent years, Zhuozhou City has sent many football talents to Hebei Football Club, Guangzhou Football Club and other professional clubs and Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle School; it has also achieved certain results in Baoding City and provincial competitions.

Not only campus football, social football matches are also popular in Zhuozhou. In some places, when the number of participating teams is small and social football matches are difficult to organize, the Zhuozhou Football Association has set up a promotion and relegation system to ensure the quality of the matches.

“We regularly hold the Zhuozhou Football Association League every year, and the Municipal Football Association Cup competitions are held the following year. It has been held for 6 consecutive times.” Qi Yi, chairman of the Zhuozhou Football Association, said that each league is divided into two groups for promotion and promotion, which lasted two times. For more than a month, there were more than 20 teams with nearly 600 people participating in nearly a hundred games. The City Football Association League has become one of the “Four Brands Competitions” in Zhuozhou City.

Why are social football matches so popular in Zhuozhou?

The first is the background. Zhuozhou City’s social football matches have not been interrupted since the 1980s. In addition to historical and traditional factors, the leading role of the Municipal Football Association in the development of the city’s football cannot be ignored.

“Since the establishment of the Zhuozhou Football Association in 2014, it has actively carried out football matches and activities based on the city’s football venues and facilities, motivating nearly 10,000 football fans to participate.” Qi Yi said that in recent years, the reputation of the Zhuozhou Football Association League has increased. Many surrounding counties (cities, districts) teams have registered to participate in the Zhuozhou Football Association.

It is understood that as of now, there are nearly 40 football clubs in Zhuozhou City. Among them, there are football clubs spontaneously formed by fellow alumni who love football, such as the Venus Football Club. The members basically come from the former Zhuozhou Parts Factory School; they also have the same unit. Football clubs spontaneously formed by colleagues who love football, such as Star Football Club, whose members are basically from Zhuozhou Geophysical Bureau; there are also football clubs spontaneously formed by fans with common experiences, such as the New Star Football Club of Zhuozhou nationality. …

“In addition to actively participating in the matches organized by the Municipal Football Association, these football clubs often use their spare time to make appointments with each other.” Qi Yi said that the numerous competitions have made Zhuozhou’s football venues very high utilization rate. , Also organized leagues within the unit.

“In the future, we will build Zhuozhou into the (North) Jingnan Bao (Ding) North Regional Football Match Center.” Wang Zepei said. (Hebei Daily reporter Zhang Jing)