"Our club isn't about winning at all costs. It is about learning through a footballing philosophy"
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Kids Football Club: The Beginning
S4Kwas founded by Steve Jones and Dr Mark Gould in 2012. We noticed a lack of quality in the service being received by parents and children in football and decided to create a program that focused on player skill development. By sampling the best techniques from around the world, we created S4K Football. We welcomed toddlers from 18 months and engaged them in football and sport for the first time in their lives. We enhanced our program to develop fun and skills in our S4K Kickers age group, before moving onto team play and matches at S4K Strikers level. The latter involved deciphering how to teach football game play to a very young crop of children – starting with the understanding that they were now part of a team, had to pass to friends and the glory of scoring goals would not always fall to them. There was also a little matter of tackling to address. Through various trials and pilot schemes, we introduced a pressure grading system that allowed children to enjoy football matches, without the pressure of being tackled. This clever little innovation also encouraged our children to look up when they received the ball, find out who they could pass to and execute a skill – we had stumbled across a golden nugget…
Tournament and Evolution to S4K FC
Matches at S4K Strikers level rapidly became the highlight of our families’ experience the class. As our S4K Football curriculum evolved, we realised the need for children to be involved in competition, but once again, under a graded level of pressure. The S4K Tournament was born in November 2012 and takes place four times during the year, where all families from the S4K Strikers and Academy are invited to take part in a low pressure tournament of activities. Full of medals, smiles and praise from the side lines, the S4K Tournament provides the ultimate platform for our children to begin their competitive sporting lives.
After soaking up the atmosphere of the S4K Tournament, our parents cried out for more competition for their young, developing superstars to take part in and something that they too could play an active role in. We trialled various friendlies and league formats, before the birth of the S4K Football Club in September 2014. The club was set up as non-profit and relied on the involvement of parents in order to keep it running successfully.
It was important to us that we preserved our skills focus and that we created psychologically engaging mantras and game management techniques that would allow our parents to become Team Managers, who could take ownership over our teams on match days. We registered with the FA and entered three teams into the local Thames Valley Youth Development League and set sail on our journey.
Importance of Training
In our first season, we met a number of challenges around the consistency of the coaching approach of our volunteer parent managers — who we refer to as “Team Coaches”. From formational misunderstandings to not fully understanding the rules around throw ins and corners, our S4K Football product development team set about introducing a level of training that would provide our parents with a solid knowledge base from which they could reinforce the messages from our S4K Football Classes and understand and exercise the S4K Way and its philosophies on child development and football.
From this experience, enhancements were made to the S4K Player Pathway at Kickers and Strikers age (to introduce game concepts such as corners and throw ins) and game management mantras such as the “Eifel Tower”, “Shape” and “Sweeper Keeper” were founded.
Finally, we brought all of this together into a half day training workshop, split between theory and practical – The S4K FC Level One – a bespoke and innovative approach to educating parents on how to be involved in a football club set up. A key message from the S4K Team Coach accreditation program is consistency – an area that has improved vastly over the past two seasons, with all teams deploying the same language and coaching philosophies in a “phrase perfect” manner.
As the children grew through the age groups, the S4K FC way of playing was improved to cater for 7a side, 9a side and ultimately 11 a side. This involved introducing additional coaching courses for Parent Team Coaches to help them to achieve the best progression with their sides.
Success and Continued Improvement
After the implementation of the training and curriculum, our club saw an uplift in results, leading to our teams reaching many semi-finals and becoming league and cup winners across multiple age groups!
Our S4K Academy continued to grow and led to the set up of S4K Professional, a program designed to provide our youngsters with the chance to experience what it is like to be a footballer. S4K Professional features classroom analysis, fitness and match play every week.
Our teams now find themselves fitter, more knowledgeable and with a greater passion for football than ever before.
S4K FC is now expanding via the S4K Network Partnership across the UK—revolutionising children’s football throughout the UK and soon to be internationally.