Shelley
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Integration
“To ensure that all our young players
enjoy a smooth transition into the senior
game we have our U19s involved in age
appropriate games and also we have
four open age teams that play in the West
Yorkshire League and the local district
league which gives all our players the
relevant experience they need to make
the transition into the senior game form
the age of 16.
We set up a 4th team as a stepping
stone for junior players to experience
adult football before the junior football
opportunity ends. Over the last four
seasons we have seen this impact in a
positive way in retaining junior players
in U17 and U18 age groups. We also have
created good coaching links between the
junior and adult teams to allow players
to develop and play at a level suited to
there ability in the adult game.”
Community
“We are definitely a community club,
not only do we provide football at the
club; we also provide and host a variety
of different social events throughout the
course of the year. We have achieved
the status of FA Community Charter
Standard Club and we are very proud of
this.
Our club is open to all levels of
players and we also have an established
U16s ability counts side too.
The UK Dog Show has been a
phenomenal success over the last few
years where we have over 100 campers
camping on site to attend and participate
in the show. We also hold birthday
parties, conferences and retirements do’s
to name a few.”
Challenges
“The biggest challenge for the club
will be trying to gain funding to assist
with the upkeep or any improvements
the facilities will need in the next three
years. Funding of any extent does not
come at a cheap cost. The main priority
will be to replace the astro turf carpet
which is now seventeen years old, a cost
which will be significant, in the region of
£160,000.”
Ambitions
“Our ambitions for the club are to
keep encouraging as many juniors to
play football at our club and at the level
they are capable of and also to help
each and every player at Shelley CFC to
progress into adult football at a suitable
level.
We also want our first team to play
at the highest possible level on the
football pyramid and this season we
have been accepted into the Countries
League which sees us move from the
West Yorkshire Premier League. Now
that we have been accepted this enabled
us as a club to enter our first ever U19s
team into the FA Youth Cup. This is
something which is pivotal to the club’s
future sustainability as we want all our
juniors to be able to see where they could
be potentially playing in years to come.
We are also looking at replacing
or training ground facility from 2G
Astro turf to 4G in the next couple of
season which will gives us a boost.
This obviously comes at a price and
we are very lucky to have a chairman
that has already given us half the
funding towards doing this. Without
our chairman’s financial support I don’t
think we would be where we are as a
club right now.”
18 Issue 01