The Rob Stephenson Trust are funding the FA coach for this project to run for another year.

Door 84 is a unique Youth Centre set in The Groves area of York. Not only attracting Young People from the area but all across York, increasingly since the 100% closures of City of York Council’s Youth Services in the last 5 years. We pride ourselves to be a welcoming, inclusive, stimulating place for Young People to come and have fun and grow to become the Young People they aspire to be.

For the past 2 years Door 84 and York City Foundation have combined to run a ‘Football Kick About Session’ Project during the Monday Youth Session to give Young People aged 8-17 within York an opportunity to be taught techniques and different skills by a coach who is FA qualified at a very low cost of £1 which includes access to the Youth Session.  Over the last year the numbers each week keep rising within the Youth Session and within the Project.

Within the last month, we’ve had up to 42 Young People in the session and up to 17 within the Football Project.

Throughout the 2 years the Young People have grown in confidence with some of them progressing to play for a number of football clubs in York. Due to the session lasting two hours the Young People can be involved all the time if they so wish, keeping them engaged,  motivated and using their energy positively. The session is very beneficial as it keeps the Young People active and this gives them a chance each week to have a good time, have fun, make new friends, whilst learning new skills and developing existing ones.

We hope to make good progress over the next year as we would like to get other Youth Clubs to take part in some five-a-side matches which will also give Young People from different parts of the city a flavour of what Door 84 has to offer.

We asked some of the Young People why we should keep the ‘Kick About Session’ running;

  • ‘It gives everyone a chance that comes to the Youth Club to get involved in something they already do or something new’
  • ‘I’ve learnt a lot of skills and want to learn more’
  • ‘Because it’s what I look forward to on a Monday’
  • ‘We all get to play with our best friends as all of them don’t go to the same schools’
  • ‘I like learning new skills and doing football matches. I really like Kyle (the coach) too!’