SINGAPORE - Some 312 football-loving children gathered at Serangoon Stadium on Sunday to participate in a friendly football tournament to mark the conclusion the first ActiveSG Football Academy programme which kicked off last month.

Participants aged six to 12 years old from the academy's five venues - Jurong East Stadium, Queenstown Stadium, Serangoon Stadium, Woodlands Stadium and Kallang Cricket Field - showed off what they learnt in the past 14 sessions from esteemed coaches.

They comprise former S-league coaches Richard Bok (Serangoon), Steven Tan (Kallang) and Robin Chitrakar (Queenstown), as well as experienced youth coaches Hyrizan Jufri (Jurong East) and Hairil Amin (Woodlands).

Academy principal and former Singapore international Aleksander Duric was also present at Serangoon and got involved in the action when he instructed the young footballers on what to do as they played on the pitch.

Even national coach V. Sundramoorthy made a cameo appearance to mix and mingle with some of the kids.

The children played at the various age-group categories, ranging from U-7s to the U-12s, and took each other in four-a-side match. There were no winners or losers as everyone walked away with a medal, presented by the various coaches, to commemorate their day.

Duric said: "Today is our last day of the 10-week programme and you can see the kids playing and enjoying themselves. I'm so happy to see so many kids coming and playing, going through our academy to learn the basic skills. Today was just to let the kids enjoy and have fun.

"There wasn't any winner today - everybody is a winner."

The next run of the junior programme will begin on July 2 and will span across 10 weeks during the national school term, but will now have twice as many sessions with 28. Children aged 13-16 years old are also welcome to join the academy. For more details, visit www.myactivesg.com/start-out/children-youth/academy/football