League Development Officer Update
Wed 2nd September 2015 | General | By Gary Langley
The season is finally under way and games are finally taking place but for many of us in and around the North West Counties League, the season never really finished, it just evolved!
As the North West Counties Football League’s Development Officer, I have been asked to give a brief insight on the role and what is going on in and around the League's Development plan, so let's have a look and see how the summer went from a League Officer's perspective.
It all goes back to the end of last season. Some of you may know that I have been in and around the game for a long time, I have been involved at varying levels in the game for nearly 15 years and I came out of semi-retirement from the game to give Litherland REMYCA a hand. That role has evolved, and I am now the club Press Officer, and it has been a successful partnership for both.
I have had a long standing footballing aim to get involved with the League. I have long admired the work that they do and always thought that I would be able to make a difference if I ever had an opportunity. That just happened to come up last season, when a chance remark in a conversation with Ian Templeman at the league's SGM in Haydock got my interest going.
It was apparent that an opportunity to get involved would come up this summer, so I did a fair bit of homework and spoke to a number of people before I threw my hat into the ring.
Shortly before the AGM in June the early signs were good that I would be able to get voted on, so I started to liaise with a few parties to see what I could do to benefit and make most use of to both the league and clubs, and I became aware of the Development Officer Role. Nothing is a gimmie in life so I researched the Committee role and kept an eye on the Development plan.
At the AGM in Blackpool I was voted onto the League's Management Committee, which I was delighted about and immediately started looking at that role. Now, like everyone involved at a club, there is a non-stop list of things to do so I set about doing the club stuff whilst biding my time until the first Committee meeting.
That meeting was a fascinating grounding into the workings of the NWCFL and it really is eye opening to see how much work is done and at what level of detail. Let’s not forget, everyone on there volunteers their time to fill these roles too. I was fortunate enough to be allocated the Development Officer's Role in early July and immediately set about the task in hand.
So, what is the Development Plan? It is a number of things, it is a Manifesto, it is a statement of intent, it is ultimately the league's agenda of what they want to do to improve things and implement new schemes and initiatives. Above all, it is a request to the FA for funding for us to be able to implement everything in it.
We have a deadline to submit our Development plan to the FA, which this year was August 31st and within that time it needs composing, structuring, assessing and to be looked at by Clubs, County FA’s and Committee members alike.
The first thing I had to do was assess the last Development Plan. This thing is up to 34 pages in size and to our credit, there are a number of the items that were in the last plan was submitted that have been carried out. One of the big things early on was to root out things that have been done and to look at what other items needed keeping and having their completion date aims re-assessed.
This in itself took a bit of time as I was coming into it from scratch but it was also interesting as it was a live catch-up to the role, so I was able to see where we were up to ‘on the job’. We then needed to add in scheme aims, and after a series of meetings, conference calls and discussions we had a look at what the league needs to develop (funnily enough), what will help clubs, what can we look at to develop as a brand.
We have long standing commitments to the FA Respect Programme, so what do we need to do in that to keep us ahead, what can benefit us as a whole. We looked at a number of problems too - we have not had relegation from Step 6 for a while and promotions from Step 7 have been difficult, as many clubs just don’t know how to approach it, and support can be difficult to get for their applications.
Initially we looked at the best way to ensure that we could get new clubs in, to give us a full league complement whilst making sure that there was a relegation spot. We believe that the relegation spot is important as it encourages clubs to keep on their toes, and for those who do drop, it gives them a chance to re-group and get strong again.
So, I initially looked at bringing back Division Two at a step 7 level. After research and discussion, this would not be logistically possible at the moment, so that was a non-starter early doors, but we do want to work with the County FA’s and Step 7 leagues to make it easier to encourage clubs to apply to come up, and to make it an easy environment for clubs to drop into and re-group.
The loss of the reserve league was a difficult one for us and is something that we are looking to re-dress. We want to look at a Development League to encourage U23 players to come through clubs, as there are huge benefits through implementing this, and whilst we acknowledge that a number of clubs have since put reserves/development teams into Step 7/8 divisions we will look at creating a regional development league to give clubs a NWCFL option.
Women’s Football is very popular at the moment, not just through England Women’s success on all fronts in the recent World Cup in Canada. The game shows signs of constant growth over the last three years, and has enormous potential. Naturally we are looking at giving our club members a stage to play Women’s teams on. There are issues with this that we will look at when we get the ball rolling - do we stand alone or enter the women’s league pyramid? We will look into that but it is an item that we will look at sooner rather than later.
Our theme this season is “Raising Standards” and it is something we are taking seriously, as we want to ensure that the Respect campaign is fully taken on board and that the standard paperwork that clubs send into us is accurate and on time. That is the same for any league, but we want to make sure that clubs know what is required and help them.
Discipline of players is important in light of the Respect campaign. It’s something that we want to encourage this year as the fine levy’s set by the FA are greatly increased, as they look to clamp down on bad behaviour on the park. Volunteers are dwindling, especially in key roles at clubs, so we want to make it easier for clubs to get volunteers in and get them proficient in jobs such as Club Secretary.
When you look at some of the directives that have come in so far, we as a League are looking to make things easier and to implement standards increases. Things like the Medical Emergency Action plans are essential for clubs to stay organised when things go wrong. Health of Clubs audits will give clubs a heads up if things aren’t working with their logistics. We are looking to promote coaching bursaries to encourage new coaches into the game.
Development days and club admin workshops should help, and if we can encourage and help the remaining clubs achieve FA Charter Club Standards, then that’s good for us all.
There are a number of schemes we are looking at, and clubs will have had a copy of the plan to look at and feedback from, so they will have a full list. It is a living document too, so it will evolve.
For me now, it is a case of seeing what comes back from the FA and to work within the Management Committee, as well as the possibility of a Steering group working with club representatives, committee members and agencies alike, to see how we can implement schemes in a manner that we can get the most support on as we bring them in.
I am also making a point of visiting as many clubs as possible to see how they feel about the plan, and what their main concerns are and also on the flip side, what help they feel that they need from the League so we can progress together.
Nothing like going in at the deep end but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
League Development Officer Update
Wed 2nd September 2015 | General
By Gary Langley
The season is finally under way and games are finally taking place but for many of us in and around the North West Counties League, the season never really finished, it just evolved!
As the North West Counties Football League’s Development Officer, I have been asked to give a brief insight on the role and what is going on in and around the League's Development plan, so let's have a look and see how the summer went from a League Officer's perspective.
It all goes back to the end of last season. Some of you may know that I have been in and around the game for a long time, I have been involved at varying levels in the game for nearly 15 years and I came out of semi-retirement from the game to give Litherland REMYCA a hand. That role has evolved, and I am now the club Press Officer, and it has been a successful partnership for both.
I have had a long standing footballing aim to get involved with the League. I have long admired the work that they do and always thought that I would be able to make a difference if I ever had an opportunity. That just happened to come up last season, when a chance remark in a conversation with Ian Templeman at the league's SGM in Haydock got my interest going.
It was apparent that an opportunity to get involved would come up this summer, so I did a fair bit of homework and spoke to a number of people before I threw my hat into the ring.
Shortly before the AGM in June the early signs were good that I would be able to get voted on, so I started to liaise with a few parties to see what I could do to benefit and make most use of to both the league and clubs, and I became aware of the Development Officer Role. Nothing is a gimmie in life so I researched the Committee role and kept an eye on the Development plan.
At the AGM in Blackpool I was voted onto the League's Management Committee, which I was delighted about and immediately started looking at that role. Now, like everyone involved at a club, there is a non-stop list of things to do so I set about doing the club stuff whilst biding my time until the first Committee meeting.
That meeting was a fascinating grounding into the workings of the NWCFL and it really is eye opening to see how much work is done and at what level of detail. Let’s not forget, everyone on there volunteers their time to fill these roles too. I was fortunate enough to be allocated the Development Officer's Role in early July and immediately set about the task in hand.
So, what is the Development Plan? It is a number of things, it is a Manifesto, it is a statement of intent, it is ultimately the league's agenda of what they want to do to improve things and implement new schemes and initiatives. Above all, it is a request to the FA for funding for us to be able to implement everything in it.
We have a deadline to submit our Development plan to the FA, which this year was August 31st and within that time it needs composing, structuring, assessing and to be looked at by Clubs, County FA’s and Committee members alike.
The first thing I had to do was assess the last Development Plan. This thing is up to 34 pages in size and to our credit, there are a number of the items that were in the last plan was submitted that have been carried out. One of the big things early on was to root out things that have been done and to look at what other items needed keeping and having their completion date aims re-assessed.
This in itself took a bit of time as I was coming into it from scratch but it was also interesting as it was a live catch-up to the role, so I was able to see where we were up to ‘on the job’. We then needed to add in scheme aims, and after a series of meetings, conference calls and discussions we had a look at what the league needs to develop (funnily enough), what will help clubs, what can we look at to develop as a brand.
We have long standing commitments to the FA Respect Programme, so what do we need to do in that to keep us ahead, what can benefit us as a whole. We looked at a number of problems too - we have not had relegation from Step 6 for a while and promotions from Step 7 have been difficult, as many clubs just don’t know how to approach it, and support can be difficult to get for their applications.
Initially we looked at the best way to ensure that we could get new clubs in, to give us a full league complement whilst making sure that there was a relegation spot. We believe that the relegation spot is important as it encourages clubs to keep on their toes, and for those who do drop, it gives them a chance to re-group and get strong again.
So, I initially looked at bringing back Division Two at a step 7 level. After research and discussion, this would not be logistically possible at the moment, so that was a non-starter early doors, but we do want to work with the County FA’s and Step 7 leagues to make it easier to encourage clubs to apply to come up, and to make it an easy environment for clubs to drop into and re-group.
The loss of the reserve league was a difficult one for us and is something that we are looking to re-dress. We want to look at a Development League to encourage U23 players to come through clubs, as there are huge benefits through implementing this, and whilst we acknowledge that a number of clubs have since put reserves/development teams into Step 7/8 divisions we will look at creating a regional development league to give clubs a NWCFL option.
Women’s Football is very popular at the moment, not just through England Women’s success on all fronts in the recent World Cup in Canada. The game shows signs of constant growth over the last three years, and has enormous potential. Naturally we are looking at giving our club members a stage to play Women’s teams on. There are issues with this that we will look at when we get the ball rolling - do we stand alone or enter the women’s league pyramid? We will look into that but it is an item that we will look at sooner rather than later.
Our theme this season is “Raising Standards” and it is something we are taking seriously, as we want to ensure that the Respect campaign is fully taken on board and that the standard paperwork that clubs send into us is accurate and on time. That is the same for any league, but we want to make sure that clubs know what is required and help them.
Discipline of players is important in light of the Respect campaign. It’s something that we want to encourage this year as the fine levy’s set by the FA are greatly increased, as they look to clamp down on bad behaviour on the park. Volunteers are dwindling, especially in key roles at clubs, so we want to make it easier for clubs to get volunteers in and get them proficient in jobs such as Club Secretary.
When you look at some of the directives that have come in so far, we as a League are looking to make things easier and to implement standards increases. Things like the Medical Emergency Action plans are essential for clubs to stay organised when things go wrong. Health of Clubs audits will give clubs a heads up if things aren’t working with their logistics. We are looking to promote coaching bursaries to encourage new coaches into the game.
Development days and club admin workshops should help, and if we can encourage and help the remaining clubs achieve FA Charter Club Standards, then that’s good for us all.
There are a number of schemes we are looking at, and clubs will have had a copy of the plan to look at and feedback from, so they will have a full list. It is a living document too, so it will evolve.
For me now, it is a case of seeing what comes back from the FA and to work within the Management Committee, as well as the possibility of a Steering group working with club representatives, committee members and agencies alike, to see how we can implement schemes in a manner that we can get the most support on as we bring them in.
I am also making a point of visiting as many clubs as possible to see how they feel about the plan, and what their main concerns are and also on the flip side, what help they feel that they need from the League so we can progress together.
Nothing like going in at the deep end but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
