Grassroots football clubs up and down the country are fighting for survival. A combination of a decades-long financial crisis and the COVID-19 epidemic has brought thousands of clubs to the brink of oblivion. But there is some modest help out there. The Football Foundation is issuing grants to the most desperate community football clubs — and here’s how to apply...

Unless you’re involved in the business side of grassroots football, you probably don’t realise how expensive things can be at this level. After all, you wouldn’t necessarily think that some young people kicking a ball around on some grass would be all that costly. But when you delve into the figures, you might begin to wonder how so many grassroots...

Lizzy Yarnold (GBR) The UK will never be a major power in the world of winter sports. With the exception of a very small area of the Scottish Highlands, we just don’t have the climate or the landscapes to excel. In addition, the most poverty-stricken, disadvantaged children in British society don’t aspire to be skiers — they aspire to...

The plight of grassroots football in the UK has now transcended the sport. This desperate situation is now common knowledge, yet we are still having exactly the same conversations — more than a decade after the issue first hit national headlines. While the problems facing the game at youth and amateur levels are never really far from the back pages...

Following intense pressure to improve participation levels in football throughout England, the FA has undertaken its largest ever survey into the grassroots game. One of the main causes of plummeting participation levels in England is the state of local pitches, club houses and training facilities. And the results of this huge survey have demonstrated just how passionately people feel about...

The FA’s National Game Strategy is an initiative designed to increase participation in grassroots football throughout England. The recent relaunch of one of the FA’s flagship schemes might have made the headlines, but does it really cut the mustard? Football at the local level in England has been starved of cash for decades. Pitches have been either sold off or...

2014 was the year that England, once again, failed miserably at a World Cup Finals. But there were signs that a major corner was turned at grassroots level. The fate of England’s national team will always be inextricably linked to the health of the game at local level. Thanks to a number of initiatives, 2014 has been a year of...