GUIDE FOR NEW U7S

Firstly It’s important that the parents/guardians and coaches all understand what we are trying to achieve as a Club and buy into the approach for our U7s. The team is not just made up of the players but the coaches and parents as well.

Our aim as coaches is to help develop the children as players, who enjoy the game, can think for themselves and have fun while doing it.

It’s meant to be fun – this underlies everything we are trying to do.

Development over results– We all like to win but ultimately we are focussed on developing each and every player in the squad.

Learning to train as well as training to learn - The drills and exercises are focussed on developing their ability to listen and learn as well as their physical skills.

Player-led development – We want to develop players who can think for themselves on the pitch. Which means...

No shouting instructions from the touchline (coaches included!) – Encouragement is good, shouting instructions is bad.

As part of their development you should be rotating players around different positions to give them experience and support their development. These should not be random postions but based on a caoching reason.

Turn up to training, be on time, listen to the coaches– Punctuality and good behaviour are expected. Priority will be given to players who turn up to training.

Respect and be nice to each other - We’re one team, be nice to each other. Players who are rude or try to hurt others will be given time out. We expect all players, coaches and parents to show respect to each other, officials and other teams.

Equal playing time  we aim to give each player equal playing time.

They’re only 6 and 7 they want to have play and have fun

Additional information:

We are an 3 star FA Accredited Club (which is their highest award) which means...

• Having an FA-trained Club Welfare Officer
• An FA Level 1 coach for each youth team (U18 and below)
• Criminal Record Checks (CRC) for all volunteers involved in youth football teams
•FA Emergency Aid-trained volunteers linked to each team
• Sign-up to and deliver The FA’s Respect programme
• Appropriate administration governance in place – in relation to the club’s size
• An FA Charter Standard Co-ordinator recruited for each club.

Each age group we also have at least one team in the Maidstone League. From U13 each age will have a side in the Kent Youth League.

Getting help

Firtly before we get to far into this I would like to say please do not be scared to asked for help from anyone on the comittee or your coach mentor if you need any help.

We will try and guide you as much we can. With documents like this or with intial meetings. But what we have found over the years different U7 groups require different types of help. Some years we have exprinced coaches taking on the year other time have caoches totaly new to football. 

We are also more than happy to send some of our more expreinaced coaches to you through your first sessions.

There also some helpful guides to the basic in the coaches area of the website.

Registration

Registration and kit orders go through the webiste.

Squad or Team Numbers

Each player in your year will have his own shirt number and each one will be different you can asign these yourslef or let the website do it for you.

Defining Teams

There are several questions you need to establish a point of view on – how many teams? – We would recomend training a one squad which helps you work out which player combinations work well. If have each team independent it beocmes hard to move players around.

How many teams?

The maximum squad you can take to a game is 10. The games are 5-a-side; and only 40 minutes of football.

Crowborough League Teams play as paired teams. Each teams travels with 2 sides and you play two matches of 20 mins. The teams have scheduled fixed once a week. Both paried teams should be of equal strenght.

Maidstone League Teams travel on their own and play 40mins match made up of four quarters. Maidstone League teams play most weeks except school holidays. They also play mini tournaments through the season organised by the league.

Once you’ve decided on this, No more than 10 per team, As a club we have banned waiting list at this age without committee approval.  If you are short of coaches to get another team going please let the club know and we will provide you with one. No palyer should be turned away. The prefered method is to move players from other teams to create new teams. I.e. if you have four and reach 10 per team. Move 1 or 2 from each add your new players and you have another team and so on. This is another example of why the one squad method works well.