Our recent Male Leagues Forum was an opportunity for our local youth and adult leagues to receive updates directly from FA staff, share their concerns, issues, ideas and initiatives from the current season.

We invited in our junior and adult male leagues along with National FA staff Ashley Slaughter and Dermott Collins to network, share experiences and answer some of the issues they have faced this season, primarily around retaining players and teams and IT / System issues.

Six of our youth leagues attended with eight of our adult leagues as we made an informal start, with networking and food available before the FA and county staff shared their presentation and hopefully answering some of the leagues frustrations whilst offering suggested solutions and support for any issues of that they were facing. 

With a mix of skills and strengths within the leagues, we were keen to bring the groups together so that they could share their experience and knowledge whilst developing stronger relationships between the youth and senior leagues. 

We hope to make this an annual event, where the leagues can identify where they need support to make their roles and responsibilities when running a league more positive, less time consuming, effective and rewarding. We also hope to continue inviting FA National staff members or external organisations where appropriate to help support and offer addtional information and advice to leagues in this informal setting.

All the information and documents shared at our league forum can be found via the link(s) below.

For more information about Clubs and Leagues support please contact Berks & Berks FA Football Development Officer, Lisa Welling, via the contact details listed at the bottom of this article.