The Club runs teams at the following age groups:
3 teams at Under 7
2 teams at Under 8
4 teams at Under 9
5 teams at Under 10
2 teams at Under 11
2 teams at Under 12
1 team at Under 13
1 team at Under 14
3 teams at Under 15
1 team at Under 16
Club Website: http://www.kewparkrangers.co.uk
If, reading through this report, you feel some of the points mentioned mirror your club then please contact me at nick.drew@surreyfa.com and your club could be the focus of the next issue of Beyond the Grass.
Issue 2 – March 2008
Beyond the Grass 2
Welcome to the second in a series of reports from our new programme Beyond the Grass. This programme has been designed to provide an in-depth look at how a successful Charter Standard Club operates and how outstanding opportunities for participation in youth football within a safe and enjoyable environment can be provided. We want to find out about how our clubs really work behind the playing side, away from the pitch, and beyond the grass . . . . .
This time round the Surrey County FA’s Assistant Football Development Officer, Nick Drew, takes a trip to the north of the county and into the London Borough of Richmond to meet the men behind one of the counties biggest youth clubs, Kew Park Rangers:
When The FA originally developed the Charter Standard Community Club status they did so as a way of recognising those clubs that were truly at the heart of their local communities. The idea was to not only identify clubs who met the requirements of the normal Charter Standard scheme, but to also recognise those clubs who went far beyond these basic requirements, to provide high quality, multi-team set ups, catering for the whole community with a better standard of qualified coaches and excellent social, training and playing opportunities for all. In short, the aim was to set standards to achieve clubs that would be perfect ambassadors for the grassroots game within their communities. In Surrey we are lucky enough to be home to one of the most remarkable community clubs that exists in the grassroots game, both within the county and beyond. Boasting an extraordinary 24 teams, Kew Park Rangers is able to offer exceptional footballing opportunities to literally hundreds of young players every week and it was a great pleasure when the club accepted my request to come and learn about the journey that it has taken to become such an enormous Community Club.
From whatever angle you look at it, Kew Park Rangers is an impressive club. It has achieved the highest status possible to achieve within the FA’s Charter Standard scheme, it has hundreds of members, it has maintained an excellent disciplinary record throughout its existence, it has strong links with other local clubs including Fulham FC, and it has become an integral part of the local community in Kew. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the club however, is that just over a decade ago Kew Park Rangers FC did not exist. All that has been achieved in taking the club from non-existence to becoming one of the biggest and most well-run clubs in Surrey has been done so in just eleven years of hard-work.
As with any programme or project, you need the right people behind the idea at the start to move things forward effectively, and in this respect Kew Park Rangers is no different. When the first training session was held some ten years ago now, the two main men responsible were driven by nothing more than a desire to offer their own boys an opportunity to play the game of football. Holding little/no experience between them of coaching or even playing the game, they began by offering nothing more advanced than a simple kick around in the park. A small kick around in the park, however, soon grew to the entering of one team into a league while developing another, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now the club consists of 24 teams and has an influx of approximately one-hundred new players every year. The two men who set the ball rolling initially have grown with the club and now rather fittingly occupy the positions of Chairman and Club Secretary, but despite all of the growth and achievements Kew Park Rangers has seen, they have ensured that the club has never moved away from offering exactly what they set out to achieve in the very beginning - a chance for anyone who wishes to, to join them for a game of football.
The main focus and ethos for the club has always been centred on fun, enjoyment and an openness to everyone and there is no individual control or ownership within the club, the club is very much governed by all of those involved. Ideas on how to develop the club are welcomed and acted on from all of the members, including parents and the players themselves. This openness and welcoming environment has encouraged a huge involvement from the local community and the impact has been sensational. The club’s Charter Standard status recognises Kew Park Rangers as a Community Club because that is exactly what Kew Park Rangers now is, a club designed for the community. Walk down the streets of Kew and ask anyone about their local club and they will proudly tell you about Kew Park Rangers. Similarly if you show the club’s kit (minus the badge) to anyone locally the majority of people would be able to identify the striped strip as being the club’s replica kit. The deep red and dark blue striped top has become somewhat of a symbol within the community, and was originally designed, rather typically for the club, by no one individual on their own but by everyone involved with the club at the time. As the story goes on the club’s official website, the team could not play in red as half the players supported Chelsea or Tottenham and they could not play in blue as the other half supported Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool. So the children were asked to come up with a team strip; a playground compromise was reached, the choice was blue and red stripes.
The pull of the club on the local community does not just stop with the players either. New coaches at the club receive an exceptionally detailed Managers’ Guide that has been produced from within the club, which provides guidance for new coaches on a variety of areas such as examples for training sessions, nutrition for players, expectations of behaviour and conduct, and much more, thus making the introduction of new managers to the club as easy and comfortable as possible. During my visit I witnessed two matches involving different Kew Park Rangers teams and on both occasions I witnessed the team being coached and organised by a management team consisting of an experienced manager working alongside a young, enthusiastic and, it must be said, very talented coach. This combination of a wiser, experienced head partnered with the youthful eagerness of a coach at the beginning of his coaching career benefited not only the players involved but the learning of the coaches themselves and is a great example of the way the club brings together members from different groups of the community.
On top of everything else, to almost cement the community standing of this football club, is the annual end-of-season summer barbeque held in the centre of Kew, at Kew Green. This barbeque, like the club, started out as a small scale event ten years ago where a few of the club members met to share a burger after an enjoyable season, and has just escalated in size year after year to the point where now this enormous event requires the club to hire external caterers just to ensure they can cope with everyone who attends! The most amazing part of this annual event, however, is that, as it was ten years ago, all of the food and drink is provided free of charge to club members and every player at the club is rewarded for their efforts over the season with a medal. It is a community club, where the involvement and the efforts of the community are recognised and rewarded. Also tied in with the end of the season are a number of awards that are presented to club members alongside the usual player of the year trophies that you will find distributed at most clubs. Kew Park Rangers have, as a club, always believed in recognising the unsung heroes as much as the heroes themselves and wish to reward as many members of the club as they can. At the end of the season you will find a variety of awards being distributed such as a goalkeeper of the year award, offering the chance to recognise the efforts of such an integral position in any team, but one that is often overlooked when the player of year awards are decided, the referee of the year award, recognising the efforts of those volunteers who give up their time to ensure that the young players will have a match, and also awards recognising continued or exceptional instances of fair play, which may go to an individual or to a whole team.
There is so much more impressive work going on at Kew Park Rangers than what I have included in this short report that for me to cover every example of good practice and detail everything the club has achieved then I would need to produce nothing less than a novel! What I can say is for such an enormous club, it truly is a credit to everyone involved that the club can run so smoothly and with such diligence towards the ethos of football being played for fun, for enjoyment and for everyone. How the volunteers involved with Kew Park Rangers have achieved what they have achieved since starting out on this venture, while balancing the demands of their everyday working and family lives, absolutely astounds me. The story of the club and those within it is a great example of how individuals with little or no experience of their own in football can still create an environment that benefits hundreds and hundreds of others every week. I find it difficult to comprehend that a club to ever be better suited to the title of a Community Club.