What a way to start the season! On Wednesday 14th February 2018 saw 42 young leaders attend the Durham FA Children and Young People Programme Launch Day at East Durham College. It was a good day for everyone involved and a fantastic opportunity for the Youth Forum to advise the young leaders attending there are lots of pathways they can take within grassroots football to develop themselves. The topics of the day were coaching and refereeing.

Refereeing
The refereeing workshop was ran by Durham FA Referee Development Officer, Jeff Russell, with the help of Daniel van Hymus and Joe Cooper who are both referees and are part of the Durham FA Youth Forum. The workshop included both theory and practical work with both groups of leaders over the day. The workshop contained mini games in the classroom which allowed the young leaders to get a better understanding about the laws of the game and to know how referees should deal with different situations in the correct manner. After taking something from the theory, the groups then moved on to the practical session which focused on 3 topics, learning the different signals, movements and how to use the whistle effectively whilst being a referee. Leaders were taught the basic roles of a referee to give them a better understanding about what obvious things a referee will need to know and be able to when officiating a game correctly. Delivering this to all the 42 young leaders involved on the day allowed the Youth Forum and Durham FA, to showcase refereeing as an excellent opportunity to get involved in grassroots football.

Coaching
This workshop was delivered by Senior Football Development Officer Dave Cleary and Chair of the Durham FA Youth Forum Nathan Harrison, who were joined by 2 other Durham FA Youth Forum members Neave Laverick and Jack Purdham, who helped to carry out a session to show that coaching can be another way to develop yourself in football. This workshop was delivered with a theory element followed by a practical session on the pitch. The theory element, which involved showing the group what Durham FA offer to young leaders in coaching such as the FA Level 1 in Coaching Football Course and how to apply for that if they wanted to go onto coaching in the future. For the practical element of the workshop the young leaders were taken out onto the pitches and started to deliver a range of practices, focusing on the different points of a coach and allowing the young leaders to understand what it is like to be a coach. The overall aim of this workshop was to try to give a basic understanding of what coaching involves and how to develop specific skills a coach will need to be successful and to show that coaching can be a future pathway for young leaders.

Overall, it was a good day for everyone who took part and was a perfect opportunity for Durham FA to engage young people from ages 14-20 and showcase the different pathways within football, such as refereeing and coaching, plus the different courses and other learning opportunities on offer for people and young leaders to get more involved or to maintain involvement with football. We look forward to those young people who attended the event attending future events and opportunities to develop themselves and support grassroots football along their journey.

You can check out all the photos from the day on the Durham FA Facebook Page!