The sport I have chosen to examine for the local and national provision investigation is football. Football became known in the middle ages when there was a sudden rise in popularity of annual football matches within Europe, particularly England. Many people including my self started playing football at a young age and have gone through the grassroots in their local area. Grassroots development Grassroots development is an organization which helps kids get involved with sport from a young age.
There is an organization which does this in a lot of country’s around the world for a lot of sports. Football, the most popular sport in the world is run by a National Governing Body. In Britain this National Governing Body is called the Football Association or the FA. The FA have many ways to influence young kids to take an active part in football. A popular way is through sporting heroes such as David Beckham. Kids see Beckham as an icon and immediately want to follow in his footsteps which makes them take up the sport themselves.
The FA are doing many things to help young kids take an interest in football. Children now have many options as to where they play football, whether it be for their school or a club. There are now 38,000 teams across England providing opportunities in every community. It is not just the FA which helps young people get started playing football. County’s all across England are doing their bit aswell. The county I live in is Hertfordshire. Recently, Hertfordshire opened the ‘Herts Football Project’.
One of Hertfordshire’s leading grass roots football facilities opened for business recently as the Cavendish School unveiled their new Football Development Centre. This centre should encourage young kids to play football. Professional clubs are helping aswell. Watford, a local club in the area helped promote the opening of the new Football Development Centre.
A Watford FC XI played in an exhibition game to kick off the new project, which had been funded a 280,375 grant from the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sports charity. Alot of the funds come from sponsorship aswell. Provision for pathways for elite performers There are many different pathways to choose from to reach a professional level of football. Schools have a system where you can get entered for district trials. If accepted you could then go on to play for county and then for either north,west,south or east of England. Once you have achieved this level of football, the pathway to become a professional becomes open.