Kids have a ball at soccer camp | Manawatu-Wanganui Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Manawatu-Wanganui

World Cup fever had reached the nine-year-olds and higher at this week's Wanganui United-Sport Wanganui football camp at Wanganui High School - but not to the younger ones to any great extent.

That's the word from course organiser Steve Kerfoot, but nonetheless the 54 children (six years to 12) had themselves a ball learning new skills.

What was interesting was that 13 of the 54 were girls - with them showing high competitiveness against the boys.

The school was blessed with four consecutive sunny days - Kerfoot had booked the WHS gymnasium in tjhe expectation he would have to use it - but it wasn't necessary.

So this appears to be part of football's day in the sun, so accelerated by the All-Whites efforts at the World Cup. And it's not just in Wanganui city.

"We've just had a one-day holiday programme in Ohakune, Kenny Halliday and I had 38 kids from the Waimarino Football Club - seven of their committee have been Wanganui rep rugby players and now have kids who play football. They're doing a great job for the game."

There were one from Taihape and Waiouru at the four-day camp, the remainder from Wanganui city.

"What we've been doing is learning a new will, and then bringing it into a game situation with one-on-ones, and then building-up to a small-sided game in the afternoons. So it's been progressive.

"It's been technical stuff, and you can't do technical stuff for too long with littlies."

Kerfoot says that with a group of more than 50, he's been able to isolate the age-groups and have them playing amongst themselves - "rather than see them having mismatches where you have six-year-olds in the same group. Here we've really got them well-matched."

The children were all skill-tested at the start on Monday, and were retested yesterday to see what improvement they had made.