Vinny Halsall , Lawrence Lok , Sharon Muxworthy any thoughts on this?

Hi there Conor, It is so good to hear that so many players want to come to your team and club.  The questions and suggestions you raise are all considerations and I suppose the answer is which option best suits the types of players you are recruiting and why are they wanting to come and play and train with you and your team? How often do you train - is there a scope to have an intra league bolted onto your sessions where you construct mini in house tournaments/leagues/playing opportunities throughout the season whilst still having a team that plays in the league you are registered with.  Maybe when you have the commitment and engagement of the new players and parents you can begin to develop additional teams - When working in schools to ensure all players had opportunities to play regardless of ability we would often organise triangular fixtures with other clubs where all players would then access the opportunity to experience and play football in an environment tailored to their developmental needs at the time. 

If you do decide to start a new team with an able and willing parents all of the suggestions you have made are ones you can consider when developing the new teams. It will be important to explain what the philosophy of the teams and club are so that parents are fully informed of the experience and environment you are hoping to provide for their players to fall in love with the game.

Thank you Sharon. We are u8 girls. I don't know if they have ambitions to play beyond grass roots football but guess most would if given the belief they could. We train once a week and play weekends. We all practice together and plan is to continue this way but will obviously need to split for match day. 

A new parent has just agreed to manage the new team so we just need to figure out how to split the team now. 

I think we will split the group based on when they joined but offer those who joined first the opportunity to join the new team if they have a friendship with child of new manager. 

This will likely lead to a very strong team (the original) and the new team will take time to develop but will no doubt become competitive with other teams just like we have over the 8 months we've been going. 

I am interested to see there is no push to A. keep the teams even ability or B. stream them. 

I always assumed grass roots clubs would be encouraged to split for even ability or friendships but guess there isn't any preference from those in this forum.  

Hi Conor when coaching and teaching girls friendships fun and fitness have always been key for me. I have also often put two balanced teams together that combine mixed ability friendships and social dynamics depending on who my players are and this is when your knowledge of the girls will be key to them getting the best experience out of the sessions as you will know them best and know which groups of girls /players will be best suited together to support and develop each others live for playing the game. Hope this helps in short all you have said are useful considerations it’s knowing the girls in front of you to know what groups would work best together.

Thanks Sharon

Thanks Sharon