BIFC is a medium sized non-profit Soccer Club serving the Bainbridge Island WA community and attracting players from around the Kitsap Pennisula. We offer a range of programs and competitive levels at all ages. At BIFC we believe soccer is about doing things properly. About making sure everyone has a chance to be involved in soccer, regardless of ability, gender, or disability. About encouraging and increasing the involvement at all levels of soccer, and about having fun doing it. It’s about making opportunities available, and about using the power of soccer to build the best environment for our players to thrive as they seek their own pathway in playing the beautiful game. Our club logo provides the essence of our program where our stars on our jerseys represent soccer for all. There is a place for you at BIFC – come join us!
Why does your club think it is important to twin with Flanders Peace Field?
This is a brilliant concept that offers BIFC a way to expand, in a positive and global sense, our soccer culture on Bainbridge Island. For our youth, this is important and positive history to know and understand at a time when typical news on a global scale is about tragedy, conflict and war. Allows for the application of modern day sportsmanship and fair play in a historical context. We also would like to twin with Flanders Peace Field and create links with like-minded clubs through the International Children’s Football Alliance across Europe and the rest of the world.
THE FIRST CLUB IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Paul Cooper (left) National Projects Director for the International Children’s Football Alliance presents Matti Vandemeale (right) Director of The Peace Village, with Bainbridge Island Football Club’s Peace Field Project Plaque.
Bainbridge Island Football Club, Seattle, USA are the first soccer club in the States to twin their soccer pitch with Flander’s Peace Field, site of the 1914 Christmas Truces. Paul Cooper, National Projects Director at The International Children’s Football Allaince presented Matti Vandemeale, Director of The Peace Village, BIFC’s Peace Field Project Plaque on the United Nations International Day of Peace (21st September, 2016) in Messines, Belgium.
Bill Lesko, President of BIFC, writes Sunday 10/2, BIFC will hosted the annual Wooden Spoon 4v4 soccer tournament at Battle Point Park. This is an annual fall favorite for kids and adults both, as all are encouraged to dress up in costume (in a nod to Halloween around the corner) while playing small side 20 minute games throughout the day.
In addition, BIFC will be presenting a Peace Field Twinning plaque to be placed at Battle Point Park, our home pitch. BIFC is the first US Club in the “Peace Field Twinning” program which is part of the Peace Field Project through International the Children’s Football Alliance. The goals of this program are to promote education of World War 1, the history Flanders Peace Field and sportsmanship in the spirit of the original 1914 Christmas Truces.
