We love football, but it isn't everything!

As a grassroots club, we recognise that the majority of our players are children and are very early on in their lifetime, with plenty of experiences to come.   We're not blinded by the fact that under 1% of players go onto professional football, but that doesn't stop us making a difference.

Children are passionate about football, and we're passionate about developing the children that play for us.  Whether that be on the pitch, or off it.  Grassroots football plays a significant role in Children's development, both from an active lifestyle perspective, which naturally improves mental health (a big problem nowadays), but also from their personal development.   Team captains have to learn leadership skills, tackle difficult conversations with players and motivate others.  Referees have to control situations, adaptively react, constantly assess, make rapid decisions, ensure safety and demonstrate leadership as well as persuasion and communication skills to get players to understand decisions.  Managers and coaches demonstrate leadership, courage and various other additional qualities.

Therefore, as a community club, we're focussed on developing our players.  Similarly, we don't believe in large stockpiles of cash, so we invest this into our members (as well as all of our other expenses and equipment!).  Our Player Pathway programme allows us to fund a number of courses annually. 

Our Pathways

We offer 2 pathways at present;
- Refereeing
- Coaching

Refereeing
We are extremely proud of our Pathways Scheme and our Refereeing pathway was the first to launch many years ago.

The Referee Pathway is designed to allow our players (and external volunteers on a self-funded basis) that reach our Under 14s to become an FA Qualified Referee and officiate on behalf of the Club at our teams fixtures and tournaments.

Each year, the Club funds up to 3 applicants to join the Refereeing pathway.  Referees earn a match fee for each game they officiate.

Minimum Age Group: Under 14s
Cost: £135 (Funded)
Minimum Commitment: 2 Years
Personal Development: Leadership, Teamworking

Applications open in October of each year and once your application is successful and has been confirmed by the Club you will be contacted via email. An application form will be available at the bottom of this page when open.

The pathway takes 2 years to fully complete. You will book on to the course with Kent FA and once qualified - you will be assigned at least 1 Ditton Minors FC team to officiate for the upcoming season. At the end of your first season officiating with us, the Club will reimburse the first 50% of the course fee. At the end of the second season officiating with us, we will reimburse the outstanding 50% to you. All the while, you are earning a match fee for each game and tournament. 

The Course

The course currently consists of:

• Introduction to Refereeing Workshop (an online call)
• A theory based session (approx. 3 hours - attended in person)
• A practical based session (approx. 1 day - attended in person)

You are then expected to complete 5 games, of which 2 should be mentored. The Club will support you in completing these fixtures.

For more information, please see Kent FA's website: https://www.kentfa.com/referees/get-into-refereeing 

Coaching

We are always looking for the next Jurgen Klopp, Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson. We recognise that many of our players want to actively participate in coaching and we have many opportunities available throughout the Club. Coaching can be a daunting task when on your own, however, by participating in our Coaching Pathway and volunteering with Ditton Minors FC - we can make that a lot more manageable and stress-free!

Our Coaching Pathway is designed to help our players (and volunteers) to gain FA coaching accreditations whilst volunteering with the Club, honing their skills to really benefit the players! Starting with the EE Playmaker qualification and subsequently the Level 1 (Introduction to Coaching Football) qualification, you can be a fully qualified coach by the age of 16!

Minimum Age: 14 (EE Playmaker), 16 (Level 1 (Introduction to Coaching Football) & Level 2)
Cost: Free (EE Playmaker), £160 (Level 1), TBC (Level 2) - Funded
Minimum Commitment: 2 Years (Level 1 upwards)
Personal Development: Leadership, Team-working, Planning, Time-management

Thanks to our partnership with our coaching providers, we are pleased to be able to offer a number of opportunities to applicants for our Coaching Pathway. For our younger applicants, they will have the opportunity to start their coaching careers by completing the EE Playmaker course and when they reach the age of 16 the Level 1 Coaching course, combined with the practical coaching of our Tiny & Mini Minors sessions on a Saturday morning where they will receive hands-on guidance from our experienced professional coaching provider. Once they've mastered the art of taking the sessions, they can then move on to take an U7 team forward from those sessions into the league!

Older applicants to the Coaching Pathway will have the opportunity to work with another of our coaches within the Club (or they can choose to support the Tiny & Mini Minors sessions).

Applications for the Coaching Pathway are open all year round.  Contact [email protected]