Forth Valley water polo club hosts first ever Next Generation Olympic Games event

The games was open to anyone aged under fifteen years old, with the swimming pool of Larbert High hosting 35 enthusiastic kids who had their first ever experience with fast paced, team water polo matches.

Forth Valley and two other Scottish clubs recently joined Strathclyde University in Glasgow to support a Direct Club Investment project that has seen full-time international level three Dutch coach Ton Kloosterman gain employment to support and develop water polo in the West of Scotland region.

Forth Valley’s club president Lorna Cherrie reckons the event will help grow the sport in the local area.

“This is an extremely exciting project,” she said. We are very excited to see the growth and development that unfolds over the next few years. This event led by Ton Kloosterman is the first step to reach our goals as a club.

"It is all part direct club investment and it is so helpful to have an international coach involved. The opportunity to have someone lead groups and classes with that level of coaching skills will only help promote what we do here, and make our participants better.

“We currently have teams in both girls and boys Scottish leagues and National Development squads, but we would like to add more players. They will especially learn from Ton.”

Cherrie believes the new initiative will also aid the club with its long term goals, which is simply to be inclusive, affordable and enjoyable for young people.

She added: “Water polo is fantastic fun and great for fitness.

"We want to have the right mix of young players who just want to have fun and young players who want to pursue the sport further.

"Besides recruiting more players, this event was also an opportunity to gain more volunteers.

"The club is passionate about not only developing and supporting players that want to play at the national level but also those that want to develop their leadership, coaching or lifeguarding skills. I was really proud to see our older players embrace this event by helping to coach, DJ, photograph and coordinate the event.

"For me it is all about the club being affordable to young people and for young people to learn more about swimming and aquatics in general. Since the pandemic there has been a huge issue around young people not being able to learn how to swim, and projects like this will help get young people in the water and that can only be a good thing.

“Ton set up the event brilliantly and it was like a World Cup event with teams representing a country each and we had flags up for each nation. The kids really got into it.”

The club is running training sessions at Larbert High on Thursday’s from 6.30pm until 8.30pm. Training runs until the end of June. New players can come along for the first four weeks free.