The Youth Football Journey
Welcome To Waveney F.C. 3 of 9

3. The Youth Football Journey


At Waveney F.C. we start from as young as 4 years old with the 'Little Lions' club at The Saturday Football Club but don't expect to take it easy by watching your child with our friendly qualified coaches and standing on the touchline with a nice hot cup of coffee from our pavilion, you will be asked to join in with the fun and games as we encourage a positive interaction within the lively 'Little Lions' and 'Little Cubs' group.
For those of you who are not familiar with how the age groups are worked out, they are based on whatever school year you are in, NOT on your age.

The Little Lions lead seamlessly to the mini-soccer development group for 4 and 5 year olds (Reception / Pre-School) which is the ideal environment to learn how to play football. The coaches will take your football development one step further as they look to prepare you for joining one of the newly formed teams.

If you wish to play for a team, you will start at U7yrs (U7 yrs by the 31st August) - School year 2. This will give you your first taste of being involved in a team environment where the result of the games are irrelevant. The intention is to allow your child to learn how to play football without the pressure that can be put on youngsters to win every game.

They will remain at 5 a side in the U8 teams (school year 3).
Your child's football development will be monitored by one of the club mentors who will oversee this age group with the managers / coaches and parents with an independent and impartial eye with your Childs development key to his role.

The teams will then move to 7 a side football on larger pitches for U9 and U10 (school years 4 & 5) which again is a non-competitive format.

Your final season of non-competitive football will be when you move to 9 a side football for one season (U11) before moving into competitive football at U12 yrs. again playing 9 a side football as we prepare you for competitive football, with promotion / relegation at stake as well as the cup competitions to keep the excitement levels up!

You will then play 11 a side football at Under 13yrs until Under 16yrs.
But this is not the end of your football career with Waveney FC as we have an Under 18 team which prepares the players to play in one of our Saturday adult teams.

We hope this brief overview give you an insight into what playing for Waveney F.C. is like.