Central venue leagues: the way forward for grassroots football?

Starting up a grassroots football club is difficult (and then running it is pretty tough too!). There are so many considerations to take into account such as; insurance, affiliation, attracting players and finding volunteers amongst many.

Another challenge is finding a suitable home venue. One where a club can provide a pitch for all it's teams if required on one day. In the modern day it is rather difficult to find that kind of space and furthermore, if such a place exists it is unlikely that one club can have access to all the pitches just for themselves.

Hackney Marshes was - and still is - a great venue for football

So when the grassroots club that I work with in London looked to address this problem, a league in East London provided the solution. All games in this league were held at one venue with the pitch and referee part of the package.

For clubs who struggle with the logistics of arranging home and away matches at the weekend, this eradicates that issue completely. And for those who do not have a coach per age group, it allows them to travel from game to game with relative ease.

This year I have been coaching with an under sevens side in the Southampton area. The league they are in have a similar system but play the games on an astro turf pitch. They are able to run three games simultaneously, with each game filling roughly an hour slot. This runs most of the day on the Sunday so it allows plenty of teams to play football on a quality surface where games are also significantly less likely to be called off. And what's more, there is a great atmosphere about the place (below is a picture of the first thing you see when you arrive).

A great sign to see entering the pitches
in a youth league in Southampton

If this became a more common system across the country it could become a real positive for scouts and people working in talent identification. I mentioned in a previous blog that scouts appear more prominently at summer tournaments and I would imagine this is because they have access to more players in one place, saving them valuable time and money.  At central venue leagues this would be of a similar advantage for them to witness young players in a competitive, realistic environment during the season.

With the Football Association planning to create one hundred additional astro turf pitches over the next four years, when organisations and football clubs look to secure funding for these pitches a case for their proposal could be to have a grassroots youth league playing their on the weekend. This would provide evidence for it being financially sustainable, in addition to the potential stream of money that would come from the hundreds of people that will be there who may want to buy tea, coffee, hot food etc.

I hope that this can become a more common sight. I have seen so many stories of clubs having to fold and this could be one mechanism that can help to reduce that occuring so often. There is a real possibility I believe for creating a system that can be easily organised nation wide which would begin to improve and bring together the grassroots football community!