ABOUT US
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Guildford City Boys FC was established originally to play a small number of football teams in local Youth Leagues. Moving into our 30th Season the renamed Guildford City Boys and Girls FC, and Guildford City Youth FC is currently registered to provide football for 23+ teams in Surrey and N Hampshire Youth Football. Players are aged 4 to 18, and the club expects to have over 320 members this year.
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The club first started playing as Bellfield Bandits, training and playing at the Bellfield’s Junior School. As numbers grew through the 1980’s, the club began to use the facilities of many other Guildford schools, Queen Eleanor’s, Worplesdon, etc and as the players themselves grew, the adult sized facilities at Shalford, Stoke Rec. and Pewley Downs. Being so nomadic it was hard for players to realise that they were part of one of Guildford’s biggest youth football clubs.
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In the mid and late 1980’s the Guildford City Boys and Girls FC Committee had pleaded with the Borough Council to help find a permanent home for the club, in an effort to bring the club together, but also to try to re-establish a Guildford City within the borough having lost the senior football side to property development and, in part, to Godalming.
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The Guildford City Boys and Girls FC Committee saw the opportunity to re–develop football interest in the local community from, to coin a current phrase, the grassroots, through youth football development.
Many will remember the reports relating to the Normandy Fruit Farm site, the proposed development of a sport pavilion and pitches, the promises of support, all to no avail when planning permission was refused through the objection by local residents. The way forward was clearly not through trying to establish a new sports site, (something the current Guildford City is also coming to realise in their negotiations for a new ground).
Through changes in the direction of football, and the constant need to bring the club, its teams and its management together, a new committee for the club went into new talks with Guildford Borough Council about available sites, and the offer to play at Stoughton Rec. was made. At that time it was not used for sport at all (some Cricket years before) but the pitch areas were notorious for bad drainage, and having to cope with the slope. We remain grateful for the supporters on the Council for their help, and particularly Pauline Searle, our local councilor who saw our club as a way to re-energies the use of the Rec itself. Biting the bullet, the club moved to use the two main pitches at Stoughton Rec, and two mini Soccer Pitches to meet the newly established need for small sided games for players under 9, now extended to all players Under 11.
This club has always been a strong devotee of mini soccer (Small Sided Games) and is proud to be seen as one of the founder participators and developers of mini soccer in the Surrey Primary League. Starting with only a handful of interested managers from the local area, the League is now one of the biggest Youth Leagues in the country and has recently become one of the first FA Charter Standard Leagues. Officers of our club also contribute and support or a part of the SPL Management Committee.
This year we are into our 15th full year at Stoughton Rec and during that time we have contributed, with the Borough Council, to an improved drainage system (which needs improving) and to helping maintain the standard of the Rec. by keeping an eye out on a range of matters and protection of local by-laws for all local residents and Rec. users. Our relationship with Guildford Borough Council and its Councilors, Staff and Rangers has never been better.
Our mutual views on improvement have of course led to the re-development of the existing Pavilion facility which is there for all to see and with the help of Football Foundation and Borough Council, and the many contributing supporters and sponsors in a outside the club, we have a clubhouse facility to be pleased with and be proud of.
We now move into a new development era for the club, safe in the knowledge that we have a home for the next 25 years through the agreed tenancy with Guildford Borough Council.
Having achieved a multi compatible facility from which Boys, Girls, and Mixed Football can be delivered we will promote the site as a coaching facility for the local area, bringing FA Coaches in to deliver courses to maintain the high standard both we, the parents and the FA expect. In order to continue to introduce new volunteer coaches to football, and in non coaching help, the Guildford City Boys and Girls FC undertakes the cost of any new courses for its volunteers, and also sponsors those coaches who wish to achieve the higher coaching grades.
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The club has previously been FA CHARTER and wishes to regain this status, once again in the coming seasons.
In August 2009 the club was able to demonstrate its existing practice and achievements in improved Coaching and Management by being awarded status as an FA CHARTER STANDARD DEVELOPMENT CLUB one of only two in this area and one of very few in the SPL.
This has now become invalid due to the increase of managers and new arrivals to our great club. The club is looking at the possible courses for all managers to attend and a target for our club to reach once again.
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Each of our volunteer coaches is required to achieve the minimum FA standard qualification, attend Child Protection Workshops, and take First Aid courses.
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ALL Guildford City Boys and Girls FC coaching and administrative staff are checked with the Criminal Records Bureau.
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We also encourage our own players to become involved in team coaching, and also to take the refereeing qualification as soon as old enough.
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To continue to develop the club further we now wish to be able to widen the scope to involve the teaching of dedicated Girls teams, Coaching of Players with disabilities, and In House provision of general courses in Football Coaching, and Refereeing, but on a city-wide rather than localised scale.
By having a dedicated lecture room as part of the development we will be able to establish a centre in Guildford for the training of Coaches from all local youth Football Clubs, saving time and money in avoiding the need to find and pay for suitable facilities. We will be able to make it far easier for coaches to achieve the required standard at a much earlier time, ensuring that all member players, whatever their club, are receiving coaching of an FA standard.
In days when there is professional club football interest in players as young as 6 years of age, Guildford City Boys and Girls FC has prided itself on remaining non-elitist, with an ability and ethic to provide football coaching to all players willing and wishing to learn, no matter what the standard. Players are only turned away if we do not have sufficient coaching staff available to coach. The idea has always been to enjoy the game for the game itself, and if we win a few trophies along the way, so much the better.
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In our view the club has an unequalled administrative and support staff, many of whom who may not now have children involved with the club, but retain and enthusiasm for the work it performs, and the valuable service it provides for its members and their families and friends, and therefore continue to provide time and effort to run the club without reward.
This Club intends to re-establish itself as the best in the area, initially for standard and management, but also by the results that will show on the field as a result of the high standards we wish to set.
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