Staplehurst
Monarchs Youth
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Jubilee Field, Staplehurst. These are run by an independent
business, Football Five Star (www.footballfivestar.co.uk)
together with summer events operated by Charlton
Athletic (www.cact.org.uk/courses). Young
referees and coaches are also helped to gain
their qualifications through the club.” easier as time progresses! It is also getting increasingly hard to
find volunteers to manage and coach our teams. Administration
of the various leagues in our area suffer from the
same problem.”
Progression “The committee which runs
Jubilee Field are very ambitious with
aspirations to eventually install 3g
pitches and floodlighting. This
would make a huge difference to
us as currently all our teams have
to train elsewhere during the late
Autumn/Winter due to, amongst
other things, drainage issues at
Jubilee.
We could also arrange for
weekly soccer schools at Jubilee
rather than just holiday courses
which would help improve the
standard of our teams and make the
club more attractive to other good quality
players.
Generally, I would hope to maintain the club’s
good reputation and be able to offer football to all young
people in the village and local area who want to get involved.”
“A separate club, Staplehurst
Monarchs United FC, run the
senior men’s’ teams in our
village. When our young people
reach eighteen we work with
their reserve team manager to
integrate those who wish to make
the transition to senior football.
Two former players are
now with the Charlton Athletic
Academy. We understand that a
further two former players are training
with Arsenal and Crystal Palace.”
Challenges
“I think the challenge for all clubs, especially with
older children, is to get them to put away their gadgets and get
active by actually playing football. I don’t see that getting any
Ambitions
“I’ve been with the club for around three years now with my current role being the player/manager. We
started the season really well this time around but results have tailed off a little and we currently find
ourselves in a mid-table position.
One of the biggest challenges we face is that we have quite a small catchment area which can make
it difficult to recruit players and when they get to a certain age there is a lot of competition with other
activities. We are grateful for the support that we receive and it would be fantastic if we could attract a
couple more sponsors to help us continue our work in the community.
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone at the club on their good work and wish them
the best of luck for the future.”
Luke Wallond
14 Issue 71