How the Trust are helping young footballers in the community

Fleetwood Town Community Trust currently have over 450 children signed up to our Football Development pathway centres across the Fylde Coast.

These sessions are aimed at boys and girls aged between 3-8 years-old and are designed to help develop the children’s football skills, whilst also improving their social skills by meeting new friends outside of the school environment. Football can also help build a child’s confidence, and that really is evident throughout the programme that we run.

The purpose of the development centres is to allow different potential pathways for children during their football careers. Fleetwood Town Community Trust have strong links to a number of grassroots football clubs as well as Fleetwood Town Football Club. Children who attend have a number of different potential opportunities available to them with the help of the development pathway, and the coaches always look to help each individual when they come through our door.

One potential route is playing for local grassroots club. This allows children the chance to be able to train and play games against other local clubs, and also play with their friends at the weekends. Over the last two years, the Under 7s Junior football teams have really progressed and that’s great to see. This team has been created from boys and girls moving on from the development centres, and it’s estimated over 120 children have moved on to teams within grassroots clubs that include Fleetwood Town Juniors, Thornton-Cleveleys football club and many others.

The development pathway can also give young footballers the chance to attend Fleetwood Town football club’s pre academy or academy set up. This allows young players the chance to be able to train and play within a professional set up at Poolfoot Farm. Over the last two years, over 20 boys have made the pathway from the development centres into the Fleetwood Town Academy and currently 15 of those are still involved to this day.

Development football sessions run each week at Fleetwood Town’s training ground, Poolfoot Farm, and also at Cardinal Allen High School in Fleetwood.

Poolfoot Farm – Tuesday 5:30-6:30pm / Wednesday 5:00-6:00pm / Friday 4:45-5:45pm / Saturday 9:30-10:30am.

Cardinal Allen High School (Sports Hall) – Saturday 11:30am-12:30pm

For more information on the times and dates, please contact Jake Anderton via email at jake.anderton@fleetwoodtownfc.com or via the phone on 07595 732214. We look forward to seeing down at one of our sessions in the near future.