Going Dutch is the way forward

RIGHT APPROACH: One of the fifth generation Astroturf pitches in Holland.

A LOCAL grassroots football chairman has had first-hand experience of the Dutch approach to football.

And he believes we are further away than ever from emulating them in their approach to the game due to a lack of financial investment in facilities.

Steve Grice is chairman of Heyside — the biggest junior club in Manchester County FA with nearly 50 teams.

Every other year since 1993 he has been going to Holland as part of an exchange link . . . and is green with envy.

While Heyside has been knocked back at every turn in a bid to get their own home ground and facilities, the contrast at svAWC in Wijchen, near Nijmegen, could not be more stark.

“They have six marvellous pitches and a fine clubhouse. They have just had a fifth generation (5G) Astroturf pitch laid, and for every 400 members they get one — a bigger club a few miles away has 800 plus so it has two.”

The whole structure of football is entwined with the community.

The Dutch FA, the local FA, the local council and the club are all in this together for the good of the local area.

From May to August the local authority and the FA get the pitches up to standard. During the season the pitches are the club’s responsibility and during the day they are used by local schools and community groups.

“Funding is just not an issue. On top of all that they have over 250 small corporate advertising boards around the grounds and it’s not the individual player who is a member it is the family. There is athletics, there is tennis,” said Grice.

When Grice returned from the latest trip in May he found out that hopes of a boost in local facilities in the Shaw and Royton area through the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) were suddenly wavering.

“Everyone at the FA and the Council has gone very quiet. They ask us all to get more qualified and more organised but they have no carrot to dangle.”

Grice, currently involved in trying to get his level three coaching badge, has this week been made aware of the gulf that exists.

“I saw a statistic that said we have 2,700 UEFA ‘A’/ Pro licence holders. In Spain it is 23,000 and in Germany 34,000, and we wonder why we lag behind.”

Grice has seen two FA blueprints come along. The first from 2001 to 2007 championed mini-soccer — something the Dutch had been doing for years and he saw progress — and from 2008 to 2012 talks of retention, growth, raising standards and better players.

He added: “They advocate nine-v-nine to improve the skills but we have no facilities to play that on the local parks. No investment in facilities makes it impossible to follow the pathways.”

As Grice looks up to the Premier League at the very top of the nation’s football pyramid, he thinks quotas on the number of foreign players is the only way to encourage home-grown talent to prosper.

“We got to the European under-21s final against Germany. Now six of the German team are in South Africa. Only James Milner from our team got a place.

“All too many can’t even get a place in their club team never mind the national team.”