Community
There is no friendlier and busier place in the local community than a football club, where it’s often the hub of activity. Whether it’s football training sessions, match days, or special events, the football club is a place for its players, their friends and their family to come together. We’ve come up with a few ways that grassroots football benefits everyone, not only for the football clubs themselves, but for the wider surrounding community.
Encouraging a Healthy Lifestyle
Inevitably, by encouraging people to get involved in grassroots football, a healthier lifestyle is promoted through exercising and getting outdoors. Not only is the health of the football players maintained, but the health of those supporting the grassroots football too. For example, adults who are volunteering to train the football teams, as well as run the behind-the-scenes of the club, are encouraged to maintain an active lifestyle too.
Developing Skills
Obviously, having grassroots football in the community will encourage new players to improve their football skills and to have fun. This will help to develop the local talent and confidence of players, regardless of where each individual player is from. As a result, grassroots football helps to promote diversity and it reduces the likelihood of discrimination, sexism and racism. Beyond technical football skills, grassroots football can teach players - young and old - about the importance of friendship, camaraderie and teamwork. Not only do younger players develop skills, but adults leading the grassroots football are developing their coaching, fundraising and researching skills too, as they ensure that grassroots football is kept alive.
Hosting Events
Keeping grassroots football alive in your town means that you’ll need funding from the local community, whether they have connections to the players in the football club or not. Getting everyone involved, beyond football, isn’t always easy. However, hosting events at the football club can be an excellent way to encourage participation and donations from the wider community. You can do this in the form of fairs, concerts and comedy nights!
Grow
Think about how you can also encourage the growth of grassroots football beyond your own town, by organising football tournaments with other football teams in different areas near you. To show the importance of everyone’s contribution, and to encourage them to keep grassroots football alive, you should consider how you will reward each player. The simplest and most common way to reward players is to give out sports trophies, with 1 st 2 nd 3 rd place awards. If you browse the collection on joblot-trophies.co.uk, you’ll be able to see these awards which can be personalised for each player being awarded. They also have a whole host of other prizes and rewards, like trophy cups, medals and even fridge magnets that can be personalised and tailored to your football club with trophy engraving. However, you could also award prizes to the best players or to players who have had the best effort, with opportunities for them to develop their football skills with a one-on-one coaching session with a professional footballer.
If you haven’t already realised how important grassroots football is to your local community, you hopefully have now. Whether you are lucky enough to have a football club in your town or not, you now have a whole host of reasons why you need to start, or protect, grassroots football in your community.
