The Youth Football Guide – No. 5: Leagues
Welcome to the fifth installment of a small series of serialisations of my book “A Guide to Surviving Youth Football” If you like what you see and want to read more please do go and purchase a copy of the book by going to Amazon.
Leagues
Deciding what league your team should play in can be a tricky decision to make especially if there are lots of leagues in your area to choose from. If you only have one league in your area then your decision will be a lot easier. However, if your local league isn’t up to scratch you may still want to look at playing in leagues from outside your area even if it means traveling. If you’re not prepared to travel then you will need to try and get some support to form a new league although this will involve a lot of work and will be very time consuming.
Joining a league isn’t always as straight forward as you would like to think. You will usually need to apply to join the league and then the members of the league will vote on whether to accept your application. To be able to apply to be a member the league may have certain criteria which you need to fulfill before you can even apply. This means you need to start preparing months before a season is due to start to make sure you are registered in time to join the league. Sometimes if not enough teams register their interest in playing in a league then a league may not be set up for your team’s age group so, again, it is important you register your interest as early as possible.
Once you have jumped through all these hoops the league will usually expect a joining fee which you will have to find before they will issue you with a handbook containing all of their rules and regulations. When all of that is done it’s time to start registering your players. Most leagues will require you to register all your players by a certain date to be able to play at the start of the season. Player registration will be different in different leagues but it can consist of form filling, getting photos of your players, and getting proof of age for all your players. All of this information will need to be handed to the league by a certain date and in a certain way or else they may hold up your registration or hand down a fine. If your players aren’t registered in time for your first league game then your game may be postponed and you may be docked points or again fined.
Some leagues will require you to attend monthly meetings; these will be a time where the board of the league can give you all the latest news updates and where you can bring up matters arising or problems you may be having. This means you will have to give up another evening every month for football related matters.
The league will arrange fixture lists for your league and it is then your duty to make sure your games are played. After every match you will have to send in a signed match report form with the result on and you will have to send in postponement reports if a game is postponed.
(Image courtesy of Stevec77)
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