Surrey Youth League Development Group

 

2008/9 has been a very important one for SYL as we have looked to drive forward youth football with some key initiatives.

 

The ideas behind this have come from you.

 

We ran two workshops to look at how you thought youth football could be improved and you came up with some good ideas which a new League Development Group has set about introducing.

 

These are the ideas that are being progressed.

 

• Under 7s ‘slow start’

 

With ‘slow start’ we will be able to ensure that new players and managers can ‘find their feet’ before getting fully bought into the SYL match structure. There will be an introductory evening for new managers (also open to new managers in other age groups) and a U7 round robin tournament day (October 4^th) before the season starts properly for this age group. Players will also be registered for the club rather than for a specific team allowing clubs to rotate their players.

 

• Manager Surgeries

 

We will be running regular surgeries during the season so that you can come and air any issues that you are concerned about. There will be four during the season.

 

• Football Watch

 

We will be setting up a group of roving assessors who will drop in unannounced to look at matches and report any concerns back to the league. It is hoped that this will overcome many of the issues that arise all too often during the season. You have been warned!

 

• 9 a side format for Under 11s for 2010/11

 

We are taking a serious look at this and recently undertook a club survey. This survey gave a very strong mandate for the idea. We are now consulting with FA and Council representatives to explore all the practical issues involved in developing this.

 

The other issues that we are grappling with but have not yet fully considered include:

 

• Improving communications on fines and exploring how we might help clubs reduce serial offending
• Looking at how we might set up a disciplinary match day process to deal with offending coaches and supporters.

 

We welcome your views on these initiatives and also welcome your involvement in any future workshops which will be run again during the 2009/10 season.

 

Please contact Rob Sheldon (rob.sheldon@wsyl.org.uk) if you want to get involved!