Interested in trying something new, Barb Sana enlisted her friend Resa Saddo to join her when she saw an opportunity to try walking football as part of Guam Football Association’s AFC Grassroots Football Day celebration Saturday at the GFA National Training Center.
“When I first saw information about walking football, I was thinking, is there such a thing?” said Saddo, who also plays for Tumon Typhoons FC in the GFA Women’s Recreational League and the GFA Co-Ed Masters League. “Barb told me about it and said, let’s play, and I said OK, let’s do this, let’s try this, because this is the first time to have this in Guam. And oh, it was so fun.”
Saddo thinks the hardest part was trying to keep themselves from running as they’re used to in the leagues.
“It was mentally challenging – we had to keep reminding ourselves and our teammates, ‘don’t run, don’t run.’ It wasn’t easy to adapt to the rules, but we were all learning at the same time,” Saddo said. “By the second match, we got the hang of it and we really enjoyed it.”
A total of seven teams – five women’s teams and two men’s teams – joined the AFC Grassroots Football festivities at GFA and particularly enjoyed walking football, GFA said in a press release.
According to the Walking Football Association’s website, walking football is a unique small-sided game created by John Croot in 2011. As the name suggests, the biggest difference from football is that no running is allowed.
Additionally, walking football is classified as a non-contact sport, according to the website.
“The threat of pain, discomfort, and injury is reduced due to the combination of a slower pace and reduced contact. This allows people who have loved the sport all their lives to once again safely get back to playing. It also introduces the sport to people who perhaps have never considered playing before,” the website says.
The novelty of the sport on Guam additionally piqued the curiosity of people who had not played football before to try…
READ MORE at source: https://www.guampdn.com/sports/guam-celebrates-afc-grassroots-football-day-with-introduction-to-walking-football/article_6cbb2480-1d75-11ef-95f9-8f81a7a0d1de.html
Author: The Walking Football
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