We're starting a new youth club and are looking for players. We have some already interested but are looking to fill out a few more teams. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for recruiting players?
Tell us more age age groups? Are there any rec leagues near you. Any HS that play soccer near you. Do you have a home field, equipment, goals, uniforms stuff like that. I started two clubs of my own. Any questions later just ask. You got start up money? Know anyone in the school system? Maybe they will let you advertise in the school. Know any officials that do HS teams. great way to find perspective players.
Oh right. Just trying to keep everyone focused. Do you have any advice for the OP? This is America. Just win and the parents will be happy to give you their money. Or have a cool accent, that usually works well too.
This question can not be answered without an understanding of why you are starting a new club. So, why are you doing this?
This does not answer the original posters question either does it? Sometimes the league has a site it might have a part in it where players can hook up with the teams in the league concerning older players.
Just reading over your post history . . . if you find so many of these threads pointless and you're aggrieved by "wasting x minutes of my life." Then why do you keep hanging out here? You tell perfectly good contributors to take a hike but you don't really make substantive contributions to pretty much any discussion, as far as I can tell. We've seen the snide, cool guy act before and it's tired.
We've seen the snide, cool guy act before and it's tired. LIKE! maybe if we ignore him completely and he'll get bored and go away. no fuel for the fire.
Good try but I like to linger because occasionally there are excellent and insightful posters that assist me with my decision making, like yonko, Bigredfutball, cliveworshiper et al but sometimes there are braggarts who I like to call out for fun and someone needs to. I also notice that it usually helps to refocus everyone back to the OP...now back to the discussion. Usually when someone is starting a club in the Spring it's a disgruntled parent who wants out of their club. Better to start at the end of the seasonal year, so you have all summer to assemble players and teams.
Gee guys thanks for all the useful feedback... nicklaino, to answer your questions Tell us more age age groups? Currently we have 14-17 but are looking to add f younger teams as well Are there any rec leagues near you. Yes, not including the one we will be playing in there are several other leagues in the area. Any HS that play soccer near you. Yes, we are in a major metro area, there are dozens of HS's near us Do you have a home field, equipment, goals, uniforms stuff like that. We will be playing our games at the league-owned fields and practicing at public parks. We have most of our equipment and are shopping for uniforms now. I started two clubs of my own. Any questions later just ask. You got start up money? We have some money, but not much. Know anyone in the school system? Maybe they will let you advertise in the school. Know any officials that do HS teams. great way to find perspective players. We have current HS coaches and AD's working with us. Of course they will be doing some informal recruiting, but most local schools have pretty right rules about any official recruiting for club teams.
Because we have kids who want to play for us and we think we could create a pretty good program for them? I didn't really know there were any other reasons.
since i can't sleep. money is a big reason that most start a new club. control is another. around here they call themselves "academies". most will say it is for the kids and i truely hope it is but when i see parents handing out $2,500 a year for what they think will be impartial coaches, superior teams/training, and a politic free enviorment with little results i get a little skeptical. i was one of them. i went in hopeful but not blind. lesson learned. every club has politics. we are human and there is no way around this one. how well this is managed is the key to their success. one club has gotten the reputation for taking in coaches(and their teams) when they are unable to "get along" with their town club. there are almost no rules and each teams pretty much operates independently. they have filled a niche here. can your market support another club? we have a former player who has a good reputation that is going on their own from an existing academy. no teams listed on his website but then the spring season is just starting. he could have teams ready to jump with him in the fall that are unwilling to out themselves yet due to possible repricussions from their current clubs. (i.e.: one town coach was honest with his club about a move he is making in the fall to an academy. they took his team from him. i'd bet the team will follow him.) this former player has the playing/coaching experience, personal reputation and team success that will make people follow him. do you have that? as a parent of a player who wants to play as competitive as possible. she is not going to a brand new team/club no matter how much i like the people involved or want to believe what they are promising. resumes could be stellar but too many unkown variables. for players in the bottom 2/3 of their age group this might be a good thing to take a chance on,see below. if i were starting a club, i would take two approaches. U11-? i would try to attract entire teams or chunks (3-4 players). maybe mid level teams that want to jump to the "next level". show you can develop players in your new club. this will attract others. U7-U11 mostly brand new teams and players. again, develop these players/teams and in turn your club's reputation. now neither of these groups are going to pay you $2,500 a year to play but if you are truely in it for the kids then the money is not an issue. fundraise EVERYTHING! (my daughter plays on a top 5 team and our out-of-pocket costs are minimal due to great fundraising efforts.) both of these options are for the patient person. neither are going to skyrocket you to the top of the gotsoccer rankings or have 50 kids show up at your tryouts for one team but the will build a reputation(hopefully a good one) and over time you can build elite teams and charge academy prices. just my 2 cents, have a great day!! my daughter rarely comes home from school with flyers from anyone outside of the rec programs. the high school coach gets his soccer summer camp flyer out but that is the only one i can remember getting. IMO, teachers have better things to do than hand out flyers for businesses.
Ok you will be playing in a rec league. Some rec leagues will take whole teams in if they don't have enough teams to play a full schedule of games especially for a spring season. They will let you add even more teams? The main thing when adding teams is that you have competant coaches to coach all of those new teams. On Uniforms that league can probably buy them for you and save you a lot of money because they buy everything in bulk. But the quality might not be that good. What's your plan stay within the rec league or eventually break away and start your own travel club? On getting players have your players look for other players of any age group. Have their parents do the same and have your coaches do the same. Their is a possibility that people that run your rec league might want to start a travel club some day. But that will probably effect your single team in a negative way. They may want some of your players, but not all of them. They may want some of you as coaches, but not all of you. If that happens they will control your team and not you. So you might think of what you want to do now as a short term plan and not a long term plan. Get friendly with some of the other rec leagues. You might even consider coaching a team or official games in those league. Why get friendly with that group and it is a good way to scout future players. What is your plans for your 17 year old guys? Most rec stop at around 18. Are they going to leave the game after 18. Are you going to help prepare them for playing in college. Are you going to start an adult travel club? When and if you start your own travel club get back to me.
"academies". most will say it is for the kids and i truely hope it is but when i see parents handing out $2,500 a year" That's crazy before academies starting poping up left and right. The young guys just played for their clubs. How much a season no more then 60 dollars a season here where I live. The first accademy style group that I saw here was started by Russian immigrants who came here. The head of the program was a russian who played professionally and then coached professionally in mother Russia He was a sign painter here. It was made up of all russian children. He got about 400 a kid had about 200 kids. Which was considered big money by the parents and him. He did know what he was doing coaching wise. But it was an old style. Was it fun for those kids? Doubt it was a lot of reps but if he was teaching how to make a good cross. All of them eventually was able to make a good cross. His helpers were all russian immigrants who played in Russia. Then after that he neede a league to play in. He joined the Italian federation which was a pretty good rec league. It was made up mostly of italian kids. Cheap to get into AND THEY TOOK THE WHOLE TEAM AS IS WITH THEIR COACHES. During game they all spoke Russian no english. They did well in this setting. Then the federation want to start travel teams within this setting in a travel league. They wanted to add some Italian players to the russian team. They were met with a lot of resistance from those Russians. So they were not put in the travel program. And they were thrown out of the Italian federation.
I live in Brooklyn. Where do you live in the Land of White Bread. Why don't you try and answer the original posters question I did. I know why you don't because you can't another know nothing.
uvahoos, I grew up in Northern Virginia and there are still ethnic pockets when it comes to soccer. Hispanic clubs border affluent white clubs in places like Arlington. Club is DC which are fed by African and/or Latino communities again border on more traditionally white strongholds. The adult clubs are broken down into British, Greeks, Macedonians, Afghans, Africans, Hispanics and they sometimes have their youth club affiliations now that more and more of their founders have children. Most recently, not being Serbian myself, but have been involved with club that is 90% Serbs. They are very welcoming (to players that can play) but otherwise kind of insular.
That's the way it is here also. Most of the clubs have just adult teams. Some of them have started youth teams, but not many. Here you can't get people to pay that kind of money to play our game. First they don't have it. Plus the kids that really can play well are in great demand. You want them you don't charge their parents money to play. So he thinks everybody pays thousands to play in hIs White Bread World. But in the real world outside of his world and outside of the US of A they don't. Every Joe Blow here in the US who played HS soccer, and has an D license think they could command money to coach. Surprising thing is they can find White bread parents with money who are willing to pay it.
Even my youth club is now charging $2500 a season for tuition, basically for their trainers. No unis, no travel, no tournaments. Mind you, this was a youth club run by volunteer parents in the mid 90s and my mom said she used to pay $50 a season!. We had a lot of success with many teams winning the Region 1 (I think) tournament but things have changed, apparently. Best example I can think is my father-in-law going to watch his niece, who now plays for the $2500 club I used to play for as a teen, and commenting that he thought his niece would be much better than she was. My father in law is a farmer and sports were never a big part of his kid's lives growing up. He doesn't watch sports on TV, so it's a complete unvarnished assessment. So it's kinda sad what that money is going to and it's plain as day to even an untrained eye that it's not working.
Okay my two cents... I started and ran my own club as well. I brought up players from rec and gave them a bit more in the department of coaching/development but at the end of the day I would not do it again. Reasons: There were far better coaches out there when I did this (4-5 years ago). I had little resources and found myself arguing with parents who didn't understand the sport and wanted to win more than anything else. And perhaps the largest reason... I simply did not have the resources to provide an 11 month program that included Winter training. Since then other coaches I know with a E or D USSF have started their own clubs of 1-3 teams. I have helped them out in structuring and guest coaching but I have always held my ground that if you have a Sockers, Magic or any program with good coaches and indoor facilities, that you are essentially doing a dis-service by wasting seasons on kids that could learn a great deal more in a better program. NOW - if COST is an issue, then that's another story - baring they cannot get assistance from such clubs. I have one coach who started a club - who did so based on his outrage with regard to how much clubs charge. He went out and nabbed donated uniforms - practice fields for free and a deal on game fields. He's only charging $165.00 for each player for this Spring in IWSL (u13/u14). That's a good deal! But his club is designed for players between Rec and Travel who want to do other activities and not completely dedicate themselves to soccer. Maybe that's something you should ask yourself as well... Is this going to be a travel program or something in between? I would say that all comes down to the commitment of the players, parents and the resources you have. Again - if it was my kid however... I would never start a program for them when someone can do it better. My 2 cents
With my two clubs we charged 60 dollars a season. A season was Fall/spring indoors, state cup and a local tiurnament and uniforms. You know why we charge 60? When I was a kid there was a park with a little house where a nice woman would sell the kids milk for a penny a contain. Soda bottle were all over the place 2 cents deposit on each bootle. So everyone could get milk. It was charity but she didn't want to make it look like charity. Same reason with us, The players had all season to get us the 60 dollars. We asked them once and never asked them again some gave it to us and some didn't.
Unless the coaches are paying out of pocket - or someone is, you cannot even register a team and cover the costs for just $60.00... Unless you have 40 kids per team. That model is just not feasible without sponsorship. And I would be surprised if you can run a real 11 month program on that amount as well. Indoor space alone is probably the biggest cost and generally very difficult to cover with donations etc... Unless you are at a local school gym. But again - Why put a kid at a local gym when they can do keeper training, 3v3, fustal and 20 other programs at Soccer City? You will pay more but IMO the players who come from that environment are simply better because of the coaching and those resources. Which is why I say you're robbing a player of learning the right way to play the game at an early age, if you just decide to start your own club because you played in College or even Pro. It takes a multitude of coaches - management staff to shuffle games, schedule tourneys, hand out uniforms and deal with parents. You need those people and physical resources to make a good club. All these small clubs popping up - again IMO, simply don't do these kids any justice - less the one I had mentioned that is specific to kids who want to learn at a higher level then rec - play travel but also want to participate in other activities. THAT is an open market and one which I think the existing clubs should address - sort of an intermediate travel experience at half the cost with half the practices but all the additional programs offered at an additional cost. That way they get kids in the door at least.
