Kent FA Chief Executive Paul Dolan is keen to see as many people involved in football, both as volunteers and as players.

Grass roots football in all counties across the country survives due to the hard work of so many people giving up their time to make games go ahead throughout a week.

Whether it be the guys that mow the pitches, paint the dressing rooms, make the tea, organise the fixtures, through to coaching and managing teams, the majority give up their time for free, just for the love of the game.

As many as 15,000 volunteers give up their time in Kent to get games on, whether it be five a side, or traditional eleven a side matches.

Without them, games wouldn’t go ahead and the Kent FA’s Chief Executive, Paul Dolan told KSN how he was happy to have rewarded just a handful of those volunteers at the Kent FA Workforce awards at Maidstone United’s Gallagher Stadium:

“It was a really pleasing night and a great chance for us to say a big thank you, reward and recognise the thousands of volunteers that underpin grass roots football.”

“Without them, we wouldn’t really have a game, so it’s been nice to give something back to the many volunteers that give so much to underpin grass roots football in Kent.”

Volunteering has been the subject of many people’s conversations since the Olympics and Paralympics in London, with anywhere up to 70,000 having given their time for free to make the games go smoothly, but for Dolan that has never been a problem in Kent with men and women coming out in their numbers each week for many years:

“I think to be honest, in terms of grass roots volunteering in football, it’s always been there. The Olympics back in the summer highlighted how important volunteering was and the Games Makers got a lot of publicity, but in terms of grass roots football, that volunteer network has always been there and it will always continue to be there.”

“We’ve worked out that about 45,000 people play grass roots football in Kent each week, which is in about 4,500 teams and then based on the number of volunteers per club how many that can be and it’s an immense network of people across the county.”

“Time pressures are getting more and more, so the challenge for us is to retain people. We’re looking at how we recruit and train the next generation of volunteers, but I think the advantage we have is that when people are looking at enhancing their CV’s for jobs, volunteering in grass roots football is so good to add on your CV and it can enhance you to basic qualifications that you may have through school.”

“We have an ageing Council and we want to work with the next generation of volunteers for the continued growth of the Kent FA.”

One of the key aims for the Kent FA is to get as many people playing football, no matter who they are and Dolan is hoping that players of all backgrounds come out and take part:

“Our role at the Kent FA is to provide safe and structured football opportunities for the benefit of all, irrespective of age, colour, gender or ability and I think that’s been reflected in the diverse amount of awards we give out to people.”

“We recognise absolutely everyone and it’s not just the traditional eleven v eleven adult male football anymore. We have significantly widened participation levels whether that’s through women’s and girls football, whether that’s disability football.”

“The next avenue we are going to look at is veterans football. We have launched a county vets cup this season and we’ve got eighteen teams in that and we really feel that’s a growth market.”

“We’re trying to entice people they may have stopped playing football through whatever reason, whether it be through family reasons or work commitments and they feel like they want to get back into it.”

“They may not be committed to playing every week, but there should still be opportunities for them to still play football.”

“We need to service the needs of the football community. Whatever they want to play we need to be offering in addition to the traditional eleven a side on a Saturday.”

The landscape of football in Kent has certainly changed, even within the past ten years, the challenge now is how to retain that growth, but if the Kent FA’s initiative is anything to go by, the future looks bright.