Lindie Naughton
A total of 310 participants set an inaugural world record for a half-hour freestyle football lesson at the Ballymun United grounds in Dublin on Saturday.
Instructor for the lesson was many times Irish freestyle football champion Sam Madden from Co. Antrim. Helping him out were fellow freestylers Malachy Crann, Peter McClure, Eddie Harbison, Ronan Dillon and Charlie Shakespeare, along with members of Ballymun United and community workers from the area.
Participants were mainly teenagers, with a few even younger boys and girls and some adults.
Madden started the lesson with simple “flick-ups”, including the “rocket launcher”, before moving on to the “neck stall’ and “blind heel”. That was followed by a variety of “keepy uppy” juggling challenges. Finally came more difficult among them “around the world”, which involves making a circle around an airborne ball using one leg, and “crossover”.
The entire lesson took 34 minutes right seconds, with all those attending counted in at the gate with an official “clicker”. The result will be sent to the Guinness Book of Records, which had already approved the record attempt.
To warm up for the event, a number of teams played in a Recovery 5-a-side tournament, among them teams from Coolmine and from the Bohemians Foundation.
Caption: Some of the 130 participants that took part in the freestyle football world record attempt last weekend
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