Author: afcunity

AFC Unity’s long-term business and strategic plan aims to help make the club a sustainable organisation with a long future ahead of it.

Aside from community projects, there will be fundraising events and socials, as well as membership packages that will be made available as the 2014/15 season starts. However, merchandise is increasingly being requested, and of course this is an effective way to meet demands of supporters while raising revenue.

As a pilot programme, AFC Unity recently utilised Teespring to launch a basic, limited edition t-shirt bearing the official club logo – with proceeds going right back into the club. It’s essentially a way of crowdfunding in a way that gives something back to those who contribute.

The Teespring initiative was a great opportunity to experiment in this way, while adding some funds to the club’s resources, and learn from the experience to find out what works best. The feedback has been almost as valuable as the contributions themselves, and AFC Unity have been able to harness this to add to the club’s marketing strategy. As a result, many things are planned for the near future, alongside the launching of a brand-new online forum for players and supporters alike.

AFC Unity would like to thank everyone who has supported us thus far, and look forward to announcing developments in the near future!

AFC Unity experienced a rollercoaster first week in competitive action this week – winning one game 7-0, and losing another 7-0.

The first game was a 5-a-side against a group with an excellent ethos, Nunny’s Funky Boots, which has engaged many women from various backgrounds in local soccer action. Before moving to Crookes, they hosted AFC Unity with a warm welcome, in their last game at Springs Leisure Centre on a hot and humid Thursday evening with a rough, hard playing surface.

Despite the conditions, the AFC Unity women won 7-0, even though Nunny’s played incredibly well and were unlucky to get more from the game.

“We want to thank the Nunny’s group for their fabulous attitude and fair play,” said manager Jay Baker. “We hope to collaborate with them and support them in the future.”

The first-ever 11-a-side game – at Hemsworth – was slightly different.

With a threadbare squad of 13 players to Hemsworth’s 17, the rolling substitutions were always going to play a part. Nonetheless, having never played together before, AFC Unity played well and held Hemsworth to just a 2-0 lead at half-time. After some tactical changes, the team came out fighting for the second half, and threatened to pull at least one goal back, until a penalty extended Hemsworth’s lead, and opened the floodgates that led to a 7-0 victory for the home team.

“Even Hemsworth admitted the scoreline flattered them,” said Jay Baker. “The penalty stopped our momentum a bit, too, and was the total turning point for that second half. Credit to Hemsworth; they’re an experienced, physical squad, and our players are still trying to gel, get to know each other well, and become accustomed to 90 minute matches with minimal substitutes in these early days. I’m proud of them, because they insisted on playing good football even at the expense of conceding goals. They never compromised, and never stopped battling. That’s the spirit we want to see.

“In the pre-season, the results don’t matter, whether 5-a-side or 11-a-side; it’s all a learning curve. We have an intelligent team with a good foundation, and as we improve, sticking to those principles will win games in the long run.”

 

Photo credit: Melanie Naylor

AFC Unity are proud to announce that the club is – through the invaluable support of South Yorkshire Sport – entering into an exciting collaboration with Hillsborough College that will see both the creation of a development system for players and the provision of high-quality home ground with full size artificial grass field and state-of-the-art facilities, not far from the city centre.

Due to this, AFC Unity have officially moved their home ground to Hillsborough College from the previously announced Forge Valley, who have been very understanding during this time of negotiation and preparation to enter into the second division of the Sheffield & Hallamshire Women’s County Football League.

“We are very grateful to Forge Valley for their interest,” said manager Jay Baker, “However, we felt we had to take advantage of the opportunity to have a more central base with incredible facilities via Hillsborough College, where we can also dedicate efforts to the creation of an invaluable development system in addition to our existing training sessions at the U-Mix Centre, so that we can continue to lay the building blocks of what we fully expect to be a club with longevity and – eventually – sustainability. We’d also like to thank South Yorkshire Sport for their fantastic support, as they helped us create these relationships that we hope will benefit Hillsborough College as much as it will AFC Unity.”

Travel to home games at Hillsborough College will be possible via bus or tram routes, and fixtures for the 2014/15 season will be announced soon. Details on the development system will also follow.

Grassroots soccer in Sheffield has been given a helping hand following a £1,500 Grow the Game grant from the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity.

The grant will allow AFC Unity to develop our women’s 11-a-side team that is for the first time entering the Sheffield & Hallamshire Women’s County Football League. The club as a whole is aiming to initiate a range of activities and projects that will raise awareness of women’s soccer and increase engagement through tackling barriers that women face entering the sport.

The Premier League and The FA fund the Grow the Game scheme with £1.5m, which is delivered by the Football Foundation, the nation’s largest sports charity. The scheme is designed to increase participation in our national game by helping clubs to meet the essential costs of starting new teams.

The key strength of Grow the Game is that its participation increases are sustainable rather than transient. Its grants create a solid infrastructure of teams and newly-trained coaches in which new people can start playing the sport, rather than simply providing temporary activity sessions, which are then vulnerable to drops in participation once the programme ends.

This year sees a particular emphasis placed on increasing the number of teams and players from the Under-15 age bracket and above, to address the decline in participation that has traditionally occurred as young people leave school and college. The other key focus is on growing the numbers of girls’, women’s and disability teams.

Jay Baker, club manager, said: “The Football Foundation has been absolutely crucial for AFC Unity in being able to literally grow the game for AFC Unity, at a time when we’re entering the league for the 2014/15 season, and looking to build a solid basis of club sustainability long-term.”

Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: “Grow the Game has become one of the Foundation’s most popular schemes. This additional funding provided by the Premier League and The FA is excellent news for grassroots clubs seeking to start new teams and get their volunteer coaches qualified with FA coaching badges.

“Congratulations to AFC Unity for working with the Sheffield & Hallamshire FA to secure their £1,500 Grow the Game grant which will increase participation in the region as well as support football development in the area.”

AFC Unity are very grateful for the funding from the Just Play programme that enabled us to hold our inaugural training sessions at the excellent U-Mix Centre.

The sessions meant we were able to engage over twenty players – some beginners, others experienced – in our training activities, which has been an impressive response to what has so far been a modest marketing campaign by the club. Our coach, Jonny Hodgson, has done very well in developing the skills of what has been a great group of players.

Through this, we have seen the foundations of a full squad being built, and with this basis we are proceeding to the stage of registering players and arranging friendly fixtures over the summer, in addition to scheduling further pre-season training.

We’re proud to announce that, in addition to manager Jay Baker and assistant manager Tim Gilhooly, Jane Watkinson has been selected as captain of the team and Rosie Oates vice-captain.

Jay Baker said, “I’m so proud of the great bunch of players we have, and the development of a team that is meeting the club’s values based on community, camaraderie, and respect. It’s exciting to put them together in a team as we approach the start of the 2014/15 season in the second division of the Sheffield & Hallamshire Women’s County Football League. A real find, (coach) Jonny Hodgson has been key to this and has done a fantastic job of coaching so far.”

One of our players, Rosie Oates, has been able to leverage her employer, Santander, into kindly providing AFC Unity with kit, completely free of charge.

As mentioned, AFC Unity will be playing in white socks, black shorts, and red shirts – the latter of which you can see in the image above, still wrapped up.

AFC Unity are incredibly appreciative of this support from Santander, who have helped ease strains on our finances significantly as a result. This will help AFC Unity move forward even more effectively in the near future, and we look forward to our players wearing these shirts in the upcoming season!

Barely formed at the beginning of spring in 2014, we here at AFC Unity have already successfully procured funding from Just Play in order to start our training at the U-Mix Centre here in Sheffield! You may have seen a few of our posters around the city, but a good number of the players so far got involved through word-of-mouth.

We’ve been lucky to have some good people (and good players!) get involved in training sessions so far under the coaching of the excellent Jonny Hodgson, and as we build a squad into the summer months, we are setting our sights on entering full 11-a-side soccer, with the Sheffield & Hallamshire Women’s County Football League.

However, in order to do this, we require home ground to host visiting teams, and the search is ongoing. In addition, we’re seeking sponsors to support the team, the organisation as a whole, and the good community activities we’ll be delivering as part of our ethos and wider engagement.

If you can help with any of these, please get in touch!