CES CEASAR AWARD WINNERS

The 2018 West Riding County FA Awards were held on Friday 27^th July at Elland Road, Leeds and the event proved to be a great success with 200 people in attendance celebrating the success of all the hard working individuals involved with the grassroots game across the region. As well as the traditional awards put forward by The FA and McDonalds, West Riding County FA staff selected some additional awards and one of these was the Ces Ceasar Award.

Ces was a prominent coach and FA Coach Mentor in West Yorkshire, with a passion for working in diverse communities and helping players develop and meet their potential. He unfortunately passed away over a year ago and the award was in his memory. We asked people in West Riding to identify a coach who had demonstrated a similar passion for working in diverse communities and supporting young players. There were some excellent nominations and Ces’s wife Jayne, who presented the award on the night, decided that the award should be split and this resulted in the formation of the Ces Ceasar Coach Academy for the 2018-19 season. 3 winners were selected and will receive a bursary towards coach education as well as direct support from the FA Coach Mentor team and the opportunity to undertake work experience with Leeds United Academy. The winners were:

• Majid Hussain (Athletico Juniors FC)
• Shazad Bashir (Fairbank United)
• Mani Salim (Phoenix Juniors)

The trio have over 40 years of real grassroots community based coaching experience between them and have supported hundreds of young people to develop as both footballers and individuals. WRCFA looks forward to supporting them over the coming year and watching them inspire the next generation of coaches.