Local and National Provision for football.

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Local and National Provision for football.

Introduction

In this investigation I will chart the progress of a talented performer, throughout the performers career, allowing me to analyse the development of the performer from grass roots to area, county, regional and international level. I will also take into account appropriate provisions and programmed opportunities for both genders and performers with disabilities.

At grass roots level the most significant contributor to the access a young performer has to sport is school and this is no different in football. 'Grass-roots' football in the United Kingdom is the responsibility of the 43 County Football Associations. These are independent bodies, which are affiliated to the Football Association, and are responsible for all aspects of the game at local level. One of the key tasks undertaken by County Football Associations is the affiliation of local competitions and leagues, registering players to clubs and the organisation of match officials and the administration of discipline.

The County Football associations are now also responsible for the 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.

The individual county associations are then affiliated to the Football Association. It is the responsibility of the technical director to oversee the development of football from 'grass-roots' through to the highest (national) level. The FA has establishes many of the centres of excellence, mentioned earlier, which develop young players through a high quality of coaching. They have also reduced the amount of 11-a-side games very young players compete in.

There is however a very significant amount of work delegated to the County Football Associations, including ?1.2million that went to developing coaching and educational programmes.

The provision for football in this area is good with many football pitches, which are marked and also have changing rooms. Good examples of this are Kimber road, Wandsworth common and Haydens road playing fields. However in other areas the pitches are not so well kept, and are rarely remarked especially during the winter months, this problem is highlighted by the Clapham common playing fields. All of these pitches do not have floodlights, which means that they are unplayable for much of the year. As a result of these plentiful facilities there are a large number of local teams ranging from school teams, to Sunday league and semi professional teams playing in the many leagues available, such as the southern district and Wimbledon league.

Women and girls provision

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Women and girls provision

In the main the facilities I have described are utilised by male performers. When researching football provision for women performers it is clear that this is inadequate. A survey was undertaken by the Football association in order to determine the state of this provision within the UK. The survey has revealed a lack of changing facilities, particularly for female footballers. Of the 21,067 sites, only 7% had dedicated female changing provision. The best areas for women and girls football provision are Guernsey, Herefordshire, Isle of Man, Jersey, Northamptonshire, and Wiltshire. The worst areas for women and girls football provision are Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, West Riding, Worcestershire. There are already a significant number of womens' 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 capitalised upon as women are not given the same opportunity to play football at school as boys. Also, the media coverage of womens' football is almost entirely non-existent and women professional footballers' pay is on a huge disparity with that of men.

Disabled Provision

There seems to be no disabled clubs in the region, but there are obviously opportunities for the mentally or physically handicapped to participate in football. There are physically handicapped referees in the area, and there is now National "Multi-disabled Soccer Association" which runs North and South. Chelsea football club has a very successful team, who are the European champions. Scotland has a National Cerebral Palsy Squad, which competes in international tournaments. These teams work in conjunction with The British Sports Association for the disabled, The British Paralympic Association, The British Amputee Sports Association and The UK Sports Association for People with Mental Handicap. These organisation aim to maximise sporting opportunities for disabled performers by raising funds to provide facilities and helping to organise teams and fixtures within the UK. Provision for disabled performers varies hugely from area to area. In my local area of Surrey there is little provision for people of disability. Access issues for the disabled are poor with changing facilities and wheelchair ramps significantly below the national average.

The provision for playing football is the best in the country in terms of team sports, as it is the 'people's game' which anyone who wants to can participate in. There are boys and girls leagues, professional and amateur men's and women's leagues, and leagues for the disabled. As the facilities do not need to differ for most groups, the facilities available are open to all, to practice as a team, to kick-about as a group of friends or to play competitive matches. Britain should be the envy of the rest of the world as it is acknowledged that mass participation is a necessary pre-requisite in the quest for excellence. However the search for talent in the UK has and is still too much of a hit and miss affair despite the ever increasing opportunities and provision being made available. It is the development of players, which lets the provision down, as not enough players get through to the academy systems or centres of excellence as needed to build up the success of football internationally. 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 bring their talent in from abroad hoping for success. The diagram below is an overview of elite development in association football.

Local Club

Local School

Centre of Excellence

Area/district

YTS

County Level

Youth Leagues

Regional level

Elite Performer National Selection

Professional Career

I feel that, as a country more players need to be brought through the ranks of football, either through academies, or by scouts signing them up to professional clubs where their talent can be nurtured through to playing professionally.

ational governing body is one of the biggest influences on children and parents today. NGB does a lot of work on how to improve grassroots in football .A lot of focus has been put on women's football and development of their amateur football.

The football association has welcomed the news that its partner Nationwide is making a 750,000 investment into womens football. This money is to help the set up youth set ups all over england to help the development of womens football. Research on behalf of the F.A has shown that 1.4 million girls have taken part in some sort of footballing activities on regular basis.

This survey found that 85 per cent of girls aged 7-15 in england took part in some sort of football activity in recent months.As much as 65 per cent of that age group are playing at least once a week a figure of 1.4 million.The figures for 2001-2002 season was 90,000 girls played competitive football.

The F.A are now aiming to get those girls involved in regular,organised club football through the new campaign 'join a squad' which also seeks to target those who have drifted away from the game in recent years. They will do this through advertisment through the world cup initial group stages and will direct them to the revamp and relauched F.A website. The F.A uses a new strategic departure to promote the grassroots game and has recently increased levels of football through England of both male an female and disabled football.

The F.A has a lt of money from sponsors and lottery and a share of 30 million pound will be spent on development of the some 40,000 Amateur clubs and with two million registered players.

The F.A is channelling 30 million a year into the grassroots as part of a process designed not just to halt but to reserve decades of decline. This money will go towards higher standard of pitches, changing rooms and facilities for clubs across England. Steve Parkin 'directorof the national game' points out the part womens footballis now the th biggest sport for women in the country, approximately 90,000 registered women and girls playing. This is still growing so we have to keep. This developing and put more money into womens football'

The F.A have a fantastic programe called 'F.A top sport football' which is designed to benefit every 'school kid.' The F.A will invest ?6 Million pound over three years to provide all primary and special schools with football equipment teacher training and resources.

There are lots of schemes set up at schools and local communities. Football is one of the biggest oppertunities where children go and have fun and educational few days of football with ex footballers and coaches. The F.A also set up schemes like give racism the red card to influences all ethnic backgrounds to get involved in football.

Lots of parents and sponsors of children football teams go out of there way to nadvertise and find sponsors for the local football teams. The childrens parents and the football club may use means like these:-

Advertise in local paper, post offices, newsagents, pubs and shops.

There was a very success scheme set up by the Telegraph & Argus (newspaper) the paper brought out a magazine with all the addresses and Photos of all the youth football teams in the Bradford and district areas.

The local professional football teams run a scheme where in the summer some of there players go to local primary schools to advertises football to the children and to advertises their team.

The national lottery put a lot of money into funding new schemes like the all weather pitches at thorton school which are used by local pub football teams all the way up teams like Bradford city under 16s this facility is a great use. Also the money is going into lots of other scemes all other the country for male, female and disabled people. Like Thackley Football team getting new flood lights and farsley Celtic getting new indoor and outdoor training facilites.

Sport England and the national lotery are pumping another 8 million ppounds to set up new leagues and teams for women ands girls. To give them the better oppertunites in football.

Also big commercial companies donate money into schemes and in exchange they get advertisement. These companies may sponsor leagues, cups all over the world to give them a wide range of advertisement. The big schemes is football in the community and this goes on all over Enganed and coca cola sponsors this scheme gibving money back in the community.

Another way of advertisement that is used very often is advertising at football games. This happens from the premiership to the west riding county amateur football clubs. These clubs will get payed different amounts of money dippending on the amount of advertisement. These advertisements could be seen on t.v and could have millions of people watching.

Local and National Provision for football.