Follow the Black Line

Follow the Black Line

Paul Brown, National Paralympic Football Coach, introduces the ‘Follow the Black Line’ campaign as Australia sets to qualify for the 2011 London Paralympics.

“I believe swimmers are amongst some of the  most dedicated, focused and disciplined athletes in the world. They are up early every morning swimming laps, training and following that black line on the bottom of the pool. Most importantly they know how much work and effort it takes to become a Paralympian.”

The campaign is an effort to develop in  National Paralympic Football players the same dedication, focus and discipline as elite swimmers.“ Our players live all around Australia and they will need dedication and commitment if we are to qualify for the Paralympics in London 2012,” Paul said.

Australia will travel to The Netherlands in June to compete in the CPISRA World Championships. Here they will compete against some of the best Paralympic Footballers in the world.  This will include Russia and Ukraine the gold and silver medal winners from the Beijing Paralympics.

Australia will go into camp at the Sydney Academy of Sport in March to continue preparations. ”It is not enough for my players to just come into camp and expect to make the National Team. They will have to train hard and often, outside camp with their clubs, State Teams and of course on their own” said Paul.

“We have an athlete tracking system (ATS) that we use to monitor training regimes of our National Players. In this way we can regularly monitor training load and improvement to ensure players are achieving their physiological and technical goals ”.

NSW players are training regularly with Assistant National Coach Kai Lammert at Linfield and all players around the country prepare for the Australian Nationals in April.

The Nationals in Adelaide in April will be the major selection event for the Australian National Team to tour Holland in June. “I have a list of 24 players that will be vying for a National Team call up. From this list only 12 will be selected to tour. Some of these players are new to the Paralympic Preparation Program, but I am sure will add more dimension to the National team.”