We offer football to all children regardless of their ability. We want to help develop our players as people, building important life skills such as communication, resilience, kindness, respect, teamwork and leadership. We expect everyone connected to the Club to act as a role model for our players. Ensuring they receive support, advice, kindness, opportunity and guidance when required, and are protected and safeguarded to ensure their personal safety and wellbeing.

We don’t believe players under the age of 12 should be restricted to certain positions (unless they want to be – some kids are determined to be a goalie for instance). Children up to and including the Under 11s (9 a side football) should therefore play in all positions to build their confidence, learn about all aspects of the game and identify what position is best for them in the long-term.

We believe players should be given the chance to play alongside those of similar ability to support their individual and collective development. Therefore, we actively encourage our managers and coaches to work with each other to include players as appropriately in the teams at their age group in terms of their relative ability.

All players, up to and including Under 11s should be given similar game time and opportunity to play and participate. There should be no discrimination and measures taken to enable this.

We advocate a passing and moving playing ethos – using the width of the pitch to move the ball around, creating space and retaining possession. We encourage players who do not have the ball to work together to close down the opposition and win possession back.

We fully support the FA’s Respect policies and codes and expect everyone involved with the Club to follow these with one another, the opposition and referees. The Club Committee will take action where it is found that these codes are not being followed.

Finally, we believe that the measure of our Club should not just be having successful teams and winning matches and competitions but how well we treat and nurture our less developed players to play and enjoy football.  Ultimately, we are a community club run by members for its members.