Shropshire's vital role in 150 years of the FA

Today, Roy Waterfield, chief executive of Shropshire FA, tells of the development of the local game and the huge debt owed to the army of volunteers at the grass roots.

Organised football has come a very long way over the last 150 years and it is fair to say that as the third oldest county association in England, football in Shropshire has been at the forefront of the evolution of the world's favourite team sport.

It is both a privilege and an honour to lead the governance and development of football in a county with such a rich football heritage.

In one of the Shropshire Star's first articles to commemorate the 150-year landmark, it highlighted the prominent role played by Shrewsbury School in the 1840s in promoting the game even before the creation of the FA. The Shropshire FA continues to value the important role played by our partner schools association in ensuring that football remains prominent within the school sports curriculum that continues to produce teams that are successful at a national level.

The SFA owes a huge debt to our army of volunteers that have created over a 1,000 football teams that provide opportunities for male, female and disabled footballers. My predecessor

Mr S. Meeson Morris, the first County Secretary in 1877, governed tens of clubs in the 1870s rather than the hundreds we have today and the focus was very much on the 11-a-side version of the game rather than the variations in format that have sprung up since, including between five and nine players a side.

We organised our first competition in the year of our birth and within 10 years almost 100 clubs were competing in either the Senior or Junior Cup. Although there have been many changes in the number, size and composition of local and regional football leagues in the last 120 years, the evolution of a football pyramid at both county and national level remains the envy of the world's many nations that now play the game.

As football diversified in the post war years, Sunday football became extremely popular with many local leagues and hundreds of clubs rather than the three leagues and just over a hundred that we have today. In fact, because Sunday is now treated just like any other day with work and family commitments, the Sunday version of the game at a grassroots level has been shrinking in size since the 1990s. Notwithstanding this fact the game continued to prosper and the SFA responded by creating five additional competitions for our regional Saturday teams, Sunday football, youth football and the ladies game.

In the 1970s men's grassroots football was flourishing on both Saturdays and Sundays and this was complemented by the emergence of junior football leagues which meant that by the 1990s organised games of football were available for children outside of school from ages six to 18. In order to showcase the talents of the best young footballers, county associations emulated schools associations by selecting representative squads. Some of Shropshire's most famous footballers have turned out for both Schools FA and County FA teams.

For the best part of 120 years Shropshire Football Association's governance role focused on sanctioning organised football, affiliating its member clubs and dealing with incidents of ill discipline confined largely to the field of play at the weekend. However towards the end of the 1990s the Football Association became concerned about the future of the game at both national and grassroots level following the establishment of the Premier League and the ongoing failings of the national team to reach World and European Cup Finals. Following a major strategic review a National Game Board was created to oversee grassroots football.

Over the last 15 years county associations have received significant investment from the FA and play a fundamental role in developing the national game. We have helped establish over a 1,000 teams with almost 70,000 players, over half of which are children. We are assisted by 4,000 volunteers and each year has invested £500,000 into grassroots football in Shropshire. We have also supported over 100 football facility projects that have attracted investment in the sporting infrastructure of the county up to a value of £7.5 million. We continue to train and develop 2,500 coaches and 350 referees.

Shropshire FA will recognise the contribution of volunteers and the 150-year landmark with two gala dinners at Shrewsbury Town FC for both junior and adult football on Friday and Saturday.