It is the local county’s job to organise competitions and leagues, register players to clubs and organise match officials, administrate discipline, development at local levels for example organising coaching, Mini-Soccer tournaments, women’s’ and girl’s football and training programmes for referees and first-aiders. All money received by local County FA’s will be put back into football in your area. If Counties have set up County teams then some of the money will be put into there, which is for the more elite players. This will help players improve and is a good way to get scouted by professional academies and then even hopefully going on to play internationally at the highest level. There are also a few academies set up outside Huntingdon for the more elite players. These are in the Cities like Cambridge, Peterborough, Norwich, Ipswich etc. Huntingdon is also not that far away from London where there is a number of academies.
In Huntingdon there are 5 teams that are in the Cambridge County League. This is a Sunday league. All of the clubs in this league have access to pitches. Some are nice and come are not. Before I reached U17’s I use to play in this league for Huntingdon Rowdies. They have 5 pitches and one main pitch where Huntingdon Town play (Adults). This pitch has been used in the past for cup finals. Where cup finals are played is decided by the Cambs FA. The Hunts FA have a county team for Under 14, 15 and 16. I played for all of them and enjoyed it as it was a step up from normal Sunday football. The Hunts FA also has a cup called the Hunts Cup which is for teams that only are part of Huntingdonshire. There is no lack of referees, facilities and competitions in this area which is can only have a positive effect on players games. As proven by Darren Bent who grew up in Huntingdon.
Provision for male/female competitors
In this area there are a number of clubs for males and females. Noticeably there are more clubs in and out of school for boys as Football is predominantly played by males. The schools I attend have girls and boys football teams. We play other schools throughout the year. The girls teams in and out of school tend to be multi aged as otherwise they would not be able to get a team easily. Outside of schools for boys there are clubs for ages between 9 and 18, from 7-a-side through to 11-a-side, the length on games increase the older you get and by the time you reach under 18’s you are playing the full 90 minutes like professionals. From there, players can progress through to reserves and first teams playing in leagues such as UCL league or even at a higher standard like conference south (Cambridge City, Histon). There are not as many female clubs but it is similar. Both boys and girls can get scouted by Academies if they are goods enough.
Many professional teams now have a men’s team and a separate woman’s team. The women’s team would definitely be less profile and the players would not get paid as much as the men. There is also a men and women’s team at national level in England.
Provision for disabled participants
There seems to be no disabled clubs in the region that I know off, but there are opportunities for the mentally or physically handicapped to participate in football. I do know of disabled schools in the region that have football teams that play against other disabled schools in the region. They have some sort of league that is played on the Astroturf. It is only seven aside but it is better then nothing. I feel they could be give more opportunities and probably are but I just don’t know about it. There are physically handicapped referees in the area, and there is now a National Multi-disabled Soccer Association which runs across England. I have seen before at a Peterborough United game a handicapped referee reefing a league game. This proves they are given the chance they deserve.
Evaluation
Overall I feel the provision for playing football is probably one of the best in the country, as it is the ‘people’s game’ which anyone who wants to can participate in. No matter there level of learning. There are boys and girls leagues at different standards and leagues for disabled. Facilities are not really a problem as they are open to everyone and there has been a lot of help by National lottery funding.
The development of players seems to be lets the provision down as not enough players get through to the academy systems as we need to build up the success of football internationally. This is probably due to the fact that a number of foreign players are being brought in by these professional clubs. There are however teams which show that young players can be brought through, like Manchester United (Beckham, Scholes, Neville G & P, etc), while others like Chelsea buy in their talent from abroad hoping for success. This method seems to be working for Chelsea at present. But this World Cup there is high hopes for England to win it as we have got our strongest team since 1966.
As a country we need more English players to go through the ranks and play professional football in Premiership. This would strengthen the National team even more and will give more job opportunities for English players. With the help this new rule from UEFA, hopefully by 2010 there will be an increase in the number of English players in the Premiership. All of the other English leagues are fine at present. There are not really anymore problems with football in England at present. But one thing we may need to keep any eye on referees as there is starting to be a shortage of them due to the abuse they get.
