ASSOCIATION

WCNW To begin, tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Steve “I have been CEO at Cheshire FA for the past three years, having previously worked in senior roles at the National FA and across other industries. I also have extensive experience within grassroots football as a volunteer coach and former Welfare Officer. These experiences provide me with a solid foundation of understanding in the work that we do within the grassroots game of football.”

Greg “I have been working at Cheshire FA for five years; it is my responsibility to lead on the operational and strategic side of the business; ensuring we are maximising our efficiency and developing partnerships with organisations that help our grassroots football community. I have previously worked in education and have extensive voluntary experience in football as a Club & League Secretary, Coach and Referee.” pandemic, the immediate focus was to encourage participants back to playing football. Having successfully achieved this, we turned our focus to growth. We launched several new initiatives and projects across the pathways, including Wildcats, Comets, Flexi and Walking Football.

WCNW What is it that Cheshire FA do?

Cheshire FA is the governing body for grassroots football in the region of Cheshire.

As a County FA, we also play a vital part in developing and growing the game. We have extensive reach with over 450 clubs in the county, amounting to over 4500 teams, more than 61,000 players, 7,300 coaches and in excess of 1,100 referees.

Our vision is Changing Lives Through Football and our mission is ‘Through collaboration, leading the development and governance of football in Cheshire to create a game FOR ALL’.

“Additionally, we continued to develop our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion by leading a number of areas including successfully passing the Preliminary Level of the Equality Award for Sport”.

WCNW Tell us more about your new strategy…

CEO, Steve, explains “Our new strategy forms part of the wider National FA strategy cycle of 2024-28. As a County FA, we are required to outline our strategic priorities and explain how we plan to deliver these over the next four years, in line with our yearly operational plan. We have spent a lot of time building our strategy to ensure football in Cheshire is in the best possible place to grow and develop.”

Business Development Manager, Greg, added “As a team, it was vital that we collaborated with our grassroots football community to seek their feedback, thoughts and opinions to help inform our strategic direction. We organised several events titled ‘A Conversation with our game in Cheshire’ to gather this information, with attendees coming from across the different pathways of playing, coaching, clubs, leagues and referees. Once collected, the team collectively then approached the different aspects of the strategy to ensure it was aligned with our stakeholders.”

WCNW What are your main strategic priorities for 2024-28?

We have outlined five key strategic priorities for our new strategy, they are; Leading, Playing, Wellbeing, Our People and Participant Behaviour.

These key pillars will then be delivered through the work we do through our ‘Drivers’. We have a number of aspirations for the strategy including; improving the quality of and access to facilities, developing a clubs and leagues network, creating positive, safe and inclusive environments, providing regular feedback opportunities and promoting and rewarding positive behaviours.

Within each of our strategic priorities, we have set; goals, drivers, opportunities and measures. These areas will then be factored into our operational plan, with some areas being of focus for year 1, year 2, year 3 and year 4. Some areas will run throughout the entirety of the strategy.

WCNW Have there been any key changes or additions to this strategy?

Greg explains “We have taken on board the feedback from our stakeholders who were keen to see a marked improvement in the behaviour of participants; we have therefore taken this on board and outlined this as a new strategic priority.

We will be working closely on monitoring discipline data that will then inform our interventions depending on the type of issue involved. It is vital that we make football a safe, inclusive environment for all and we are committed to doing this.”

WCNW Who is your target audience and what is the main aim of the organisation?

As a County FA, we have lots of opportunities for anyone to get involved in football. Our audience is vast and should someone have an interest in playing football, we have opportunities available from the age of 5 through to 65+ players who play Walking Football.

We also have opportunities for individuals to become Referees, or to get involved in coaching or volunteering within clubs or leagues.

Football has the potential to change people’s lives for the better, keeping you physically, mentally and emotionally active.

WCNW What projects are you currently working on?

We are currently at the planning stage for the new season and we are keen to bring on board new partners and sponsors to support our projects across our male, female and disability pathways. We also have 16 County FA Cup competitions that kick off in September, with teams looking to earn their place in April & May’s County Cup Finals.

We would love to welcome new sponsors to our County Cup competitions. If you are interested, please reach out!

WCNW Looking ahead, what are your main aims for the organisation and how would you like it to develop?

CEO, Steve “We have a number of key performance indicators that we work closely on with the FA over the next four years to achieve maximum growth in participation across all formats of the game. We’re really excited about bringing our strategic priorities to life, particularly as they have been built so closely in collaboration with our grassroots community.”

Greg, Business Development Manager “We are extremely grateful for the incredible commitment that our volunteers display to make football such a special game in Cheshire and we’re determined to reward their successes and achievements, whilst also supporting them to make the game even bigger and better throughout the course of the next four years!”

Find out more about Cheshire FA and their new strategy by visiting www.CheshireFA.com