Hearing today that Sport England have cut £1.6 million from the budget to the FA due to lower adult numbers playing football.
This does seem to be a developing trend that loads of juniors play the game but stop very quickly in their late teens.
How do you keep adults playing? The first experiment seemed to be rolling subs as in the County League- this is surely just re-arranging the deckchairs.
In the North East they are starting a midweek summer league on 3G pitches and for shorter-duration games- that's a problem round here due to lack of pitches.
I agree the funding cut is a worry, and probably just the start. Maybe its worth another look at an U20/U21 mid week league (even non competitive) to keep players interested or even recruit players who have left the game.
I think mid week might work as a lot of prospective players work weekends, its something that the CFA have looked at and seem keen to progress but it would be interesting to see the thoughts of a club that runs senior teams.
I suppose, as you say, it will bring up the same worries though, lack of pitches, facilities, finance etc but might be worth investigating. If ever there was an area in need of 3g pitches its here.
