The countdown is over, and the annual highlight of a youth footballer’s year is finally here! Canberra’s 32nd Kanga Cup tournament is officially in full swing following the Opening Ceremony at Commonwealth Park!
While the ominous grey clouds may have blocked the light from the sun shining though, this year’s traditional starting point for the competition saw representatives from all participating clubs spreading team spirit, celebrations and chanting their way into the beginning of a jam-packed five-day competition full of football.
The Kanga Cup is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest youth football event. Thinking back to the first event held in Sydney in 1991 where just 35 teams competed, the tournament sure has come a long way! This year, Capital Football and the Kanga Cup have welcomed 357 teams to compete for gold, making it the tournaments largest competition to date!
Attendees of the opening event were greeted with numerous food and drink vendors, but also stalls of some of Kanga Cup’s partners including the National Zoo & Aquarium, Deploy Football, SportsHeads and the official Kanga Cup merchandise stand where visitors could pick up some of the necessities to combat Canberra’s cold winter temperatures.
The ceremony officially kicked off at 2pm, with all clubs prepared to make their march across Stage 88. As this occurred, players and their accompanying officials were welcomed with an ancient, traditional smoking ceremony by the Ngunnawal People. The smoking ceremony is one of the oldest traditional ceremonies that is practiced in the world today by the traditional owners of the land.
The opening ceremony march also provided the opportunity for each of the participating clubs to take centre stage and make their first impressions in front of all their friends, family, but most importantly, their upcoming competition for the week ahead.
As the march concluded, the tournament’s international competitors, the under 18’s girls of Carmel College with the background support of the under 12’s Hibiscus AFC, promoted their cultural pride, strength, and unity as they performed the traditional dance of New Zealand, the Haka.
If the opening event is a reflection of how the tournament will run, the football community is in for a fun and wild ride filled with joy and some of the best representation of team spirit imaginable! But now everyone’s focus has turned to the upcoming 1252 matches which will be played across 65 fields at seven different locations across the Nation’s Capital and surrounding areas.
We look forward to seeing what the rest of the week has in store! Be sure to share all your opening ceremony photos and videos, as well as anything captured throughout the tournament to social media so all the excitement is available for everyone to see. But don’t forget to tag the official Kanga Cup page @KangaCup so we can make sure we don’t miss out on all of your highlights!
Words: Kate Reedy
