The Kent FA Youth Council are attempting to get more people involved in grassroots football, and have produced a series of videos to showing the different pathways available.

The videos can be found on the Kent FA’s YouTube channel and were devised and produced by the Youth Council, a group of 14-22 year old volunteers who act as the voice of youth football in the policies and decision making of the county FA.

The Youth Council decided to run this campaign in response to falling participation figures in the sport and a worrying drop-off in player numbers in the 16-19 year old age group.

There are 5 videos in the series, all featuring a different Youth Council member showcasing their involvement in football and explaining how, and why, other people can get involved.  The grassroots football roles the videos cover are Volunteer, Referee, Player, Coach and Administrator.  There is a further compilation video covering all 5 of the roles.

Be a Kent Volunteer

Sam Lansdale presents the Volunteer video from Greatness Park, home of his club Sevenoaks Town Juniors FC.  In the Volunteer video, Sam can be seen mowing and rolling the field, setting out equipment for a training session and marking the pitches for junior football sessions.

Click here to watch Be a Kent Volunteer on the Kent FA YouTube channel

 

Be a Kent Player

Tankerton FC’s Luke Baker encourages young people to play football in the Be a Kent Player video, as well as giving some of the statistics on how many people are now playing football.  Luke has recently set up a club Youth Council at Tankerton FC who are now producing a monthly magazine promoting the club.

Click here to watch Be a Kent Player on the Kent FA YouTube channel

 

Be a Kent Coach

Be a Kent Coach is aimed at getting young people through FA coaching qualifications and actively coaching football at junior clubs.  Dan Grech presents the Be a Kent Coach video from Monkton Juniors FC, where he coaches the u10s.

Click here to watch Be a Kent Coach on the Kent FA YouTube channel

 

Be a Kent Referee

Young referee Holly Warmington is featured in the Be a Kent Referee video, which aims to get players who are no longer actively playing the game but still want to be involved in football into refereeing.  Holly explains the benefits of refereeing and outlines the effect the FA Respect campaign has had, in particular in improving the matchday experience for young officials travelling to clubs around the county to referee.

Click here to watch Be a Kent Referee on the Kent FA YouTube channel

Be a Kent Administrator

Be a Kent Administrator stars Herbie Tyler, a club volunteer with several clubs in the Folkestone area including Folkestone Invicta where he started his administration career.  Herbie explains the benefits to young people of being a volunteer administrator, including learning new and transferable skills and the chance to add something new to your CV.

Click here to watch Be a Kent Administrator on the Kent FA YouTube channel

The Youth Council also produced a compilation video featuring each of the areas in a single video.

Click here to watch the compilation video

The Youth Council was formed in 2012 and was the first of its kind in the country.  The success of the Kent FA Youth Council has led several other County FAs and the FA to set up their own youth representative groups.

Lee Suter, Football Development Officer for the Kent FA, explained the rationale behind the videos.  “The Youth Council set their own agenda, and we provide a bit of expertise and funding to help them along.  They felt quite strongly that the number of people dropping out of football at the age of 16 was something that they needed to address, so came up with these videos as a way of letting people know the options they have and ways they can get involved with football.”

“We worked with Dan Bromley from KentSport, the county sports partnership, on the filming of these videos and they were a great help in getting them edited and produced.  The Youth Council members are very happy with the final versions.”

To see all the Youth Council videos, click here to visit the Kent FA’s YouTube channel.