Anyone who has not set foot in a school for a few years probably has an image of a football wasteland created by government sell-offs of playing fields and staff who gave up extra-curricular work long ago. But that was then and this is now. Everyone involved in school football agrees that there is work to do, but the message is that money is going into the game and the right methods are being applied.

“It’s at its healthiest for 15 to 20 years,” Kelly Simmons, the FA’s head of football development, said. “The Government has invested nearly half a billion pounds in school sports and it’s much easier for us as a governing body to coordinate because they are all clustered into 449 School Sports Partnerships, with professional staff to generate after-school sports.

“Now our development staff in a county can sit down with ten or 12 key people from a cluster of schools and plan to deliver teacher training, schools’ clubs, schools’ competitions and coaching.”

In 2001, the FA put £6 million over five years into training primary school teachers. “Primary schools are the first introduction for children to football,” Simmons said. “We offered them free coaching courses and equipment packages to help move them away from playing 11-aside to mini-soccer, to make sure that the first introduction was the right format of game, with relevant practices and skills.”

Of course, an inner-city school with limited facilities or open space and no member of staff with the enthusiasm to organise football will struggle to offer the opportunities that a school with a field and a keen teacher can.

At Long Meadow School in Milton Keynes, David Morley, the deputy headmaster, has been involved in schools football for 14 years. It benefits from regular visits from its local Coca-Cola League Two club. “MK Dons regularly come in and we have sessions conducted by their coaches and they run an after-school football club,” he said. “We are probably making football a special case, but I believe that football is our national sport and is a great way of motivating children.

“Football is a passion of mine, so I run and organise football. Increasingly, a lot of schools are bringing in specialists to teach PE. Sometimes they stay on to run the football team.”

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