United Club of Utorda

GFDC stands for Goa Football Development Council and is a Registered Society of the State Government of Goa. The society of GFDC is separate from Goa Football Association (GFA) and it works in harmony as both bodies are for the development of football in Goa.

On 26th March 2012 the Honourable Ex Chief Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar in his budget speech in the Goa Legislative Assembly made the broadcast that Football would be the Official State sport for the State of Goa. He also declared that Dr. Rufino Monteiro who is a renowned& recognized Cardiologist who has a deep passion for the game of Football would be the Chairman of the Goa Football Development Council.

On 29th July 2012 the GFDC office premises was officially inaugurated by the Honourable Ex Chief Minister with its office at Myles High Corporate Hub 6th Floor, Patto, Panjim, Goa. This council is a registered society of the Government of Goa formed to work for the growth, progress and advancement of the game of Football in Goa state. This football council’s goal is towards thesupport & enhancement of the efforts of the Goa Football Association (GFA), All-India Football Federation (AIFF), Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

The Goa government has declared the football would main sport in Goa and formed the Goa Football Development Council (GFDC) to promote grass root coaching for youth between the ages of 6 to 13years. In this regard many full-fledged and associate centres were opened at various villages of Goa.

The United club of Utorda took the plunge and on 14th July 2014 the GFDC Utorda associate centre was inaugurated as the 25th centre with over 80 young boys and girls enrolling.

In the year of 2016, the centre has been upgraded to a full-fledged centre and we have two qualified licenced coaches Mr Joaquim Fernandes and Mrs Linette Vaz and the overall in charge as the centre head is Mr Albino da Costa. We have over 120 trainees and Nutrition is provided to them on a daily basis,within two years of operation three of our boys have been selected for the GFDC residential Academy.

United club of Utorda recently launched its school of music. Noted musician Alvaro Pereira will guide and instruct students in learning the violin, keyboards and guitar. Over 40 youngsters enrolled on the first day itself. Agnelo Pereira, the president of the club, in his address, highlighted the club's ambition to nurture young talent and in the long run produce outstanding musicians. The music school will be under the management of Livio Pereira, the club executive member. Enrolments are still open for those interested in joining the music school, said club secretary Trindade Fernandes. Noted musician Alvaro Periera, President of United Club of Utorda, Agnelo Pereiera, Secretary Trinadade Fernandes, Livio Periera and people of Utorda including kids interested in studying music seriously were present duing the inauguration of the School of Music of Utordo. Training will be imparted in Violin, Keyboard and Guitar by experienced and qualitfied instructors under the guidance of noted musicaian Sir Alvaro Periera.

Farmers’ Clubs are grassroots level informal forums. Such Clubs are organised by rural branches of banks with the support and financial assistance of NABARD for the mutual benefit of the banks concerned and rural people.

Coordinate with banks to ensure credit flow among its members and forge better bank borrower relationship.
Organise minimum one meeting per month and depending upon the need, there would be 2-3 meetings per month. Non-members can also be invited to attend the meetings.
Interface with subject matter specialists in the various fields of agriculture and allied activities etc., extension personnel of Agriculture Universities, Development Departments and other related agencies for technical knowhowup gradation. For guest lectures, even experienced farmers who are non-members from the village/ neighbouring villages could be invited.
Liaison with Corporate input suppliers to purchase bulk inputs on behalf of members.
Organise / facilitate joint activities like value addition, processing, collective farm produce marketing, etc.; for the benefit of members. They can also sponsor / organise SHGs· Undertake socio-economic developmental activities like community works, education, health, environment and natural resource management etc. · Market rural produce and products

Set up of Farmers Club

Farmers’ Club is an informal forum in the villages. It can be promoted in a village / cluster of villages, generally in the Operational Area of a Bank. While Farmers’ Club should have minimum of 10 members, no upper limit in the membership is envisaged. Every Club would have two office bearers - One 'Chief Coordinator' and the other 'Associate Coordinator'. The office bearers would be elected by Club Members on a democratic basis for a term of two years. The office bearers should be residents of the area of the operation of the club. No NGO representative can be office bearer of the club. The main functions of the office bearers would be to convene meetings, to arrange meetings with experts, maintenance of Books of Accounts, coordination with Bank, Line Departments of the State Governments, maintaining proper liaison with Bank.

ZAO Margao and ZACL organised a farmers seminar at Utorda Hall today 27th Sept. Mr Sandeep Faldessai of ZAO Margao stressed the need of preserving the agriculture in the Village.

He gave talk on the improved variety of seeds available and the various Governmentschemes and advised the farmers to go in for commercial farming with scientific methods.

Mr Tendulkar of ZACL said that farmers should test the soil and offered free services to the Villagers. Mr Agnelo Pereira of United club of Utorda suggested to open a weekly village market for Utorda which was welcomed by the Villagers.The villagers of Utorda demanded small pucca roads in the fields for carrying fertilizers and farm produces.Mr Jose Paul Fernandes , Ms UloricaSilverira, Trindade Fernandes, Seby Gomes and Paul Pereira coordinated the event. Seerao, Augustino Cardozo, Samson Dourado and Remy Fernandes participated in the discussion.

Vast areas of fields were covered under cultivation through the initiative of Farmers club of Utorda.

Farmers of Utorda are happy with the bumper crop that they reaped this year.Farmers club of Utorda under the Guidance of United Club of Utorda brought awakening among farmers. Utorda is a village situated and sandwiched between Arabian Sea and River Sal has a vast alluvial river basin which is ideal for paddy,vegetables, pulses and watermelon cultivation.

Utorda's farmers has a rich knowledge of traditional farming but last one decade farming was receding at its ebb, may be it is because of economic boom from NRIs from the village or lack of cheap labour available or simply because Utordekars were lazy to put extra efforts or the blame game goes to politicians .

United club of Utorda under the leadership of Mr Agnelo Pereira and his Secretary Trindade Fernandes and their governing board felt that their club is doing only sports, cultural and social activities and they saw a need to do something for the farmers and agriculture in the village,so they took a step andhad door to door meetings with the farmers, motivated them, had seminars and formed a separate identity and an entity for the farmers and formed "FARMER CLUB OF UTORDA" in year 2013 and registered the farmers club of Utorda with agriculture department.

Vivian Almieda, Jose Paul Fernandes,Seby Gomes did a yeoman service in this formation.These farmers had little or no access to modern technology, no access to government schemes and benefits now stand to benefit. In due course United club of Utorda believe and are confident that the farms will have all the infrastructure like roads, electricity and water supply. UCU hopes that the farmers one day will become not only self-sufficient but business men too. The United club takes pride to be the only social club to venture into such a project with 125 farmers made the Krishi Cards through the club.

United Club of Utorda opened a 24 hours emergency oxygen cylinder facilitation center at Utorda for the benefit of the general public of Utorda village and much beyond too. The club donated 2 medical oxygen cylinders along with breathing accessories, wheel chair, water mattress, etc as part of their community service programme. Parish Priest Father Santo Antonio Periera blessed the center in the presence of villagers of Utorda. The medical equipment is housed at the residence of Club Member Juliet Fernandes, Marabhat, Utorda, South Goa.

Keeping in mind how our citizens especially the poor face hardships for want of blood during sickness and more during emergency at the time of accidents, we thought of rising to the occasion and hence in collaboration with Goa medical college Bambolim blood bank we once a year organise a blood donation drive where on an average over 60 of our villagers & members donate blood.

Each donor is entitled to a donor’s card with an entitlement of one free bottle of blood of any group; hence most donors place their cards in the custody of the club. We in turn do not hesitate to help the citizens of Utorda with as many cards as required, in fact people from all our surrounding villages have come to know of this unique blood donation facility and we go out of our way to help them too. So with this project we have tremendously reduced the tension for want of blood of any group within the whole village of Utorda.

The United Club of Utorda is a pioneer of sorts in providing the villagers of Utorda an opportunity to learn the skill of swimming. Due to the Utorda Clubs good efforts and initiative many Goans from Utorda village were able to learn swimming for the very first time in their life.

Last year in April and May 2015 the United club of Utorda started for the first time Swimming classes for the Youth as well as their parents by hiring out a private pool at Utorda where we had about 55 participants.

This year the total enrolment is well over 90 but their being a demand for the facility of using the pool throughout the year,we thought it fit to Start a swimming Academy, where one can not only learn swimming but use the pool throughout the year by being members with a Membership fee on a quarterly, half yearly or annual basis with a family package included,the response has been overwhelming. We may be one of the few village clubs to start this facility at very reasonable costs.

United Club of Utorda was adjudged as the best youth club of Goa and got the Nehru Yuva Kendra award in district of South Goa for the year 2013- 2014.South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar handed over the award in presence of Shirish Lawande District youth Coordinator South Goa at the Yuva Utsav 2015 ceremony held at Khola village in Canacona taluka on 07th Feb 2015.

MP Narendra Sawaikar lauded United club of Utorda for their services rendered for the community of Utorda.The award was received by Agnelo Pereira and Trindade Fernandes President and secretary of United club of Utorda respectively.

The club was judged and the club performed well on following criteria i.e. , Health and family welfare,Environment preservation,Women empowerment, Cultural Programmes,Sports activities, Employment generation,Social welfare, Educational projects and celebration of National and international days.United club of Utorda has Farmers club of Utorda,Music School and Football training school under its umbrella and are conducting many Health camps,Awareness programmes,Blood donation drive and Sports Tournaments.

Inter Village Football has a big pride & prize among the Goan villages. Almost every next village of Goa has its own nurtured football team that participates in this tournament every year.

On the average, the State of Goa is reported to last have around 170 plus football clubs which are directly registered with Goa Football Association (GFA), most of them owing their allegiance to Goa’s many villages. Each club is officiated by referees approved by GFA and the partaking teams have also be registered as active within the database of GFA. The Village Football Club affiliation is cancelled if the football club fails to participate in Third Division or Second Division league matches in Goa.

Managing a Football Club in Goa is an expensive matter. The clubs football expenses itself for each financial year can run into lacs of rupees. All of this this has to come in time from donations, sponsors and patrons of the club. Few Football Club expenses are such as Soccer Kits for players, Travelling expenses, Refreshments, Body toning & training expenses, Professional Coach Service etc.

Gone are the golden days when football lovers used for the name and fame of the game and for the pride of the village. Today some compensation or reward in the form of prizes is a must.

Only top 16 football club teams can manage to make it to the final list of teams participating in the All Goa Inter Village Football Tournament, so the Club its members, villagers and team players have to put in their best team efforts to make it in.

The GFA format of inter-village structure has clubbed a group of villages as a single village wherein 3 or 4 villages maybe clubbed together. The United Club of Utorda has its boys as well as all girls football team in South Goa.