Last year, we pulled out 18 of our grassroots teams and made our own Internal League. This season, we replicated it with 24 grassroots teams.
With 28 teams between the ages of U6 & U11 and all of the teams at a good enough standard, we ended up having multiple teams in the same division of local youth leagues.
We sat down as a team and looked at the options. Option 1: have little to no control over fixtures, facilities and aggressive parent-coaching from other teams, but the players get to experience all of the above and use it as a positive.
Option 2: have full control of the above, but lose the experiences of playing against other sides where you will face adversity in the forms of poor pitches, etc.
We came up with a hybrid: Create our own internal league from U7-U10. Whilst keeping U11+ into external leagues and entering all age-groups into every summer festival available. That gave us control, whilst still exposing our players to what they needed.
Control, but control over their development. We sat down and created our Tactical Cycle. We created extremely even teams, with each team having slightly different attributes. For example, 1 team that was physically dominant, 1 with ball carriers. You get the drift.
Age-groups had ability based conferences. Example: U9’s have the Eastern conference and the Western Conference. Each with 6 teams. How do we manage player movement?
With us owning the whole process, dominating players in the Western Conference are moved into the Eastern & players in the top conference struggling for confidence can play in the Western. This has made the divisions extremely competitive.
We record results and have our “tournament” structure in place. The goal? Make the top 4 and enter the playoffs. The coaches are given clear instructions: results are not important -> but once in the playoffs, play to win.
This weekend (1st May), is the Playoffs.
To find out who made the playoffs, click below:
Our Superbowl Final is on the 7th May. On that day, we will aim to make every players day as memorable as possible.