The difficulties of running a grass-roots football club

Self ran sports clubs are always difficult to run, from finances to person squabbles, to even getting people to turn up.

How are these clubs ran, and who are the people behind them?

Dean Swift is a committee member at London Freedom FC, a LGBTQ inclusive football club based in West London.

Dean has been a member of the club for the past 18 months, and was one of the founding members. The club has just completed their first season, winning the league and only losing one game all season - that being on the final day of the season.

Dean said” “Every year the whole committee sits down and writes our footballing manifesto, its basically our approach for the competitions and teams we want to enter”

“There’s never going to be a way to get it 100% right, and that’s an important thing to relay to the players” he added.

London Freedom FC has multiple squads of varying strength and competitiveness for its 60 members to take part in. With a competitive and development team being the focus of the clubs interests.

This allows all players to stay satirised with their involvement in the club and leaves no one feeling disappointed in the minutes they get on the pitch.

This is different from another club I spoke to, the Wetherspoon Wanderers. Where club co-owner Adam Bell stated the difficulty he has getting players to join in.

“A lot of the time we have players moaning and complaining about minutes on the pitch and saying they deserve more minutes than someone else.” Adam said.

The club ultimately folded this summer due to issues with players.

Jamie Woods is currently in the process of setting up a new 11-aside football team based in South West London, and knows the difficulties players can cause.

Jamie said: “starting as a 5-a-side team, growing to 9-a-side and now becoming 11-a-side, we have experienced the teething issues with having players on board with a project.”

Jamie said that during the expansion of the team, it has been difficult to keep all players happy, especially as the team is growing more and more competitive.

Jamie added: “We try and keep the atmosphere friendly, but with new recruits always coming in, it can be difficult to keep some of our guys content.”

One issue all three clubs face is finances, and this is a common issue amongst grassroots football.

Jamie and Adam’s sides are both fully funded by the players, who have to purchase their own kits as well as contribute for the hire of pitches and any other things the club may need.

Whereas Dean’s team does have outside funding. London Freedom FC have a good social media following, allowing the team to source funding from sponsorship, an option most grassroots teams do not have.

This elevates a lot of the financial pressure from the club, but adds new pressure in keeping outside stakeholders happy with the process and direction of the club.

Running your own football club is more than possible, but its safe to safe the biggest problem will always be dealing with personalities in the dressing room, as all three clubs have experienced on differing levels.