On February 20 the exciting, fast-paced sport of futsal will once again hit the local sporting scene with the start of new schools-based futsal leagues.

Nearly 200 children will play for 32 teams representing ten local schools in the Primary and Intermediate/Middle school age groups. And this just covers Monday afternoons. College aged players will begin their season on Tuesday February 21 with a turn-up-and-play session to begin their season, then competition games to follow.

Find the full draws HERE.

“The natural progression following the re-introduction of futsal over the last year or so was to test the appetite for running competitions here in Matamata,” said Dwayne Barlow, the Swifts’ futsal co-ordinator. “It would be fair to say we’ve exceeded our expectations, in terms of the interest we’ve had and the entries we’ve received.

“A huge thank you goes to the Sports Co-ordinators at all the schools who promoted this to their students, and to the children and parents for getting involved. As organisers, we’re in for a busy next seven weeks, and the kids, I’m sure, will have a blast.”

Futsal has had a presence in Matamata, on and off, for more than 15 years. Over the last year, Matamata Swifts has run turn-up-and-play sessions on Monday afternoons, which had solid interest from players of all ages. This led to Matamata Intermediate sending boys’ and girls’ teams to the 2022 AIMS Games, then the Swifts entering three teams, who all represented the club superbly, in the Term 4, 2022 Waikato junior futsal leagues.

Want to know more about futsal? Click HERE to watch a short movie.