The Pathway For the Elite Athlete
All footballers start at grassroots football; if they are good enough they will be selected for their school team (permitting their school plays football). If they are interested in playing more football there is a variety of clubs, previously mentioned, that they can choose from. There are two routes for the elite athlete; the first is the school route. You play for your school and then your district and then the county followed by the national schoolboy side. The other is the club route, from a local club team to representing the league to an academy to their first team. I will now go into these routes in more depth. The club may be at a low level of representation or a higher level i.e. Maidstone a town team opposed to a village team such as Cranbrook., a scout can invite you for a trial at a professional club and If you are successful you will be offered a contract. Meanwhile through school you can go for district trials and get into the district team (the district team for this area is Ashford) and then through the district manager go for County trials. Upon Success county level can lead onto Schoolboy representation but usually you would be at a professional club by now should you be this good. This is due to the fact County football is of a considerable less standard then that of a professional club. Once contracted at a club you hope to keep developing until it comes to the stage you are regularly representing the first team in one of the country’s top leagues. Finally with a few good seasons you could very well find yourself in the national senior team. The flow diagram (on the last page) should make it easier too understand.
Male of Female preference?
Women’s football 20 years ago was not as popular as it is today, 10 years ago it was frowned upon(mainly by men as they saw it as their sport after all they didn’t want to play netball) but recently it has slowly developed, following g success in the states. In 1990 there were only 20 teams in the southeastern counties league now there is over 200 clubs all over the country. But in comparison to the 50,000+ men’s teams it is quite clearly not yet an equal sport despite a significant number of women’s' football clubs in the UK. This number is increasing every day through publicity generated by films such as 'Bend it like Beckham'. However, this increase in popularity amongst girls and women is not being fully grasped upon, as women are not given the same opportunity to play football at school as boys. Also, the media coverage of women’s' football is almost entirely non-existent and women professional footballers' pay is on a huge disparity with that of men. The only regular women’s football on TV is the FA cup; in stark comparison there is a live match from one of the men’s leagues on every day. The nearest girls club is Tenterden Tigers, Angley school also has a girls team and I’m informed they play a few times each season, however they only have 1 team covering all the girls from al years, the boys have a team for each year. In my Opinion Football is 90% favoured towards men.
Disability In Football
For many years, disabled people have been spectators, as others have enjoyed the highs and lows of playing football. But in recent years variations of the sport have been devised to allow virtually any disabled person to play, and to enjoy the thrills of taking part, and winning. Disability football is now available in international tournaments and several of the international governing bodies now hold their own World Cup finals, as in the no disabled game. Recently The Kent FA in conjunction with Ashford Borough Council and the Kent Sports Development Unit invited students from Valence School to take part in a power chair football demonstration. “Eight students from the school in Westerham demonstrated power chair football to spectators at the Annual Mobility Show, held at the Julie Rose stadium in Ashford on Saturday 21st August. The players showed great ball control as they dribbled around cones, played keep ball and finished with a 4 v 4 game.” Although there are not any many disabled clubs in the area (unless you include Gillingham Fc!) I think this event clearly showed the county’s intent to make football open to everyone. I inquired at my Club Maidstone United and they had didn’t have a disabled team nor could tell me where the nearest one was. I searched a variety of places on the Internet and couldn’t find the nearest disabled sports club nor find out how many leagues there are nationally the subject simply is not well documented.
Additional Agencies and Funders of Football
The National Lottery provides most of the funding for the youth scheme development in football. Agencies such as sport as England are set up by the lottery to help improve the conditions of community facilities. The Football Foundation is the UK's largest sports charity and was launched in 2000 to deliver a £53 million investment programme into grass roots football. This initiative represents a unique partnership of the FA Premier League, the Football Association, the Government and Sport England. “The Foundation will implement a single strategy to deliver substantial investment in local leagues, at schools and in parks, and to promote social welfare and education among players both male and female of all ages and abilities.” The FA also supplies football with a lot of money through the extravagant TV Deals. While doing research for this project I found out about Narco. They provide opportunities for young people living in disadvantaged areas to get involved in recreational activities. Their projects recruit and train adult volunteers from the local community (over half of whom are unemployed or unwaged) to take a leading role in organising and running activities. This community-led provision has been shown to be an effective way of addressing disaffection and empowering young people, increasing the skills and confidence of adult volunteers, and strengthening good community relations.
Conclusion
Provision for football in my area is excellent (especially being in a rather rugby dominated society) this is due to the fact that so much money can be made out of the football industry. It is also good thanks to the agencies mentioned above and the fact that it’s the most popular sport in Britain. Provision in schools is also excellent due to being cost effective and simple. Grassroots football of course is well funded due to the fact that simply it will be producing England’s future stars. Woman’s and Disabled football however is still very much a minority but is continually getting better. In conclusion football is a strong as ever with it’s highest ever number of participants ever combine this with the superb funding and I’ll think you’ll agree that local and national provision of football is forever growing and getting better.
