Four years may represent a mere fraction of the Essex County Football Association’s existence but, as the County’s largest ever grassroots consultation process recently discovered, this diverse region of the UK is changing rapidly - and it needs a dedicated local football framework to grow alongside it.
The ECFA Strategy 2008-12: ‘Shaping Football in Essex’ will evolve alongside The Football Association’s own equivalent issued in March 2008 and identifies the challenges facing football at a local level, allowing the ECFA to prioritise its services for the coming four years. Essex is the largest County FA in the Country, with almost 5,000 teams playing each year, and the County’s remit also includes five London Boroughs, meaning the area covered embraces a total of nineteen Local Authorities.
Essex is also renowned as a footballing area, with many players progressing from grassroots football into the professional game. We all remember Geoff Hurst, Bobby Moore and Martin Peters’ achievements in 1966! This success has been based historically on strong participation rates and, despite national trends, Essex continues to at least sustain its rates in all areas of the game.
Football doesn’t sit within a vacuum, and the major tests facing society will have a dramatic effect on the game. Essex is a key area for housing growth, with an additional 98,620 homes to be built by 2021. If the five London Boroughs’ targets for 2017 are included, this figure jumps to 168,570. Many of these will want to play football, placing a large strain on the local infrastructure as well as the limited number of referees.
In a bid to ensure the Beautiful Game doesn’t stand still in our County, the consultation process has distilled all the challenges into four ‘Strategic Goals’ and three ‘Key Enablers’ the ECFA needs to address over the next four years:
Goals: Growth and Retention – sustaining and increasing the number of players; Raising Standards and Addressing Abusive Behaviour – creating a safe and positive environment; Developing Better Players – focusing on the 5-11 age group; Running the Game Effectively – leading and governing the game.
Key Enablers: A Skilled Workforce – recruiting and developing a highly skilled, diverse, paid and voluntary workforce; Improved Facilities – improving the access and quality of training and playing facilities; Marketing and Public Relations – clear communications to everyone involved in the game.
What’s the E.C.F.A. Doing to Reach These Goals?
Growth and Retention
A new Women’s Colleges League aimed at females in further education and those who may not have experienced the game before was created recently. Futsal divisions began at the tail end of 2008 and eleven-a-side games are ongoing in a league format, feeding into a national competition. The contest is divided into easy-to-reach regionalised divisions, the North being at Tiptree’s Thurstable School while the South takes place at Thurrock & Basildon College. ECFA Girls’ & Women’s Development Officer for Outer Essex, Emma Burden, explains: “We have issues with girls dropping out of football and if we can address this in some small way that can only help the development of the game. Already the number of teams involved has led to us staging two separate divisions, so our fingers are crossed that these will continue to grow.”
Raising Standards and Addressing Abusive Behaviour
Improving standards of behaviour is amongst the most crucial targets for the game in the forthcoming few years. The ECFA is currently concentrating on the Respect Programme which is being rolled-out across the nation in both the professional and grassroots game. Equally, reducing the drop-out of referees and the number of abandoned matches are at the forefront of the initiative which aims to reintroduce the fun into children’s football. Local registered leagues and clubs are now being invited to voluntarily sign-up to Respect according to ECFA Welfare Officer, Helen Hever. “We are currently doing presentations to our leagues, which is positive because it means the profile of the Programme is being raised," Helen explains. "For it to succeed, it requires ‘buy-in’ and responsibility from all concerned. Everyone in football needs to be aware that they can make an impact and bring about change.”
Developing Better Players
Matthew Joseph, Team Leader of Essex’s FA Skills Team, is forging strong links with Dunmow-based club Flitch Youth FC to provide extra training sessions as part of an agenda to improve the nation’s five to eleven-year-old players. The Skills Programme incorporates around sixty coaches nationwide hoping to improve technical ability from an early age. Weekly additions to their existing club training sessions have now started to pay-off, according to the former Leyton Orient player: “I’ve seen definite improvements in the attitudes of the players and their abilities to adapt and learn. We hope to develop stronger partnerships with clubs like Flitch.”
Running the Game Effectively
E-Mail Inboxes have embraced a new friend in recent months following the trial run of a brand new E-Zine, Row-Z, which has been developed to improve the quantity of grassroots football stakeholders who can now be within touching distance of ECFA news, events and information. Initially, two pilot editions were distributed amongst clubs, referees and competitions with E-Mail access in late 2008. Row-Z compliments the work undertaken by the ECFA around Essex with a balance of light-hearted external football news. Press & Publicity Officer, Chris Evans, believes the potential for the future growth of Row-Z is unlimited, saying: “There are thousands of individuals in the area who have no idea how to get involved in ECFA activities and many who would appreciate regular updates both from inside and outside the County Office. This free, bi-monthly service is open to absolutely anyone, so I’d advise people to contact info@essexfa.com to ensure they don’t miss out!”