16. Such an important age in your life. GCSE's coming up and your new transition from high school to college. However the age of 16 is not just important in the everyday world, but in the world of football as well.
Scholarships are a 2-year deal that you sign with a professional club, getting given an education and a healthy allowance and the years leading up to this contract will have huge amounts of pressure on the academy and grassroots players alike.
Scholarships have a huge effect on both the world of grassroots and the world of academics and are deeply desired and considered the last chance of making it pro in the beautiful game.
However, there is a contract after scholarships called pro contracts and these are more serious, but the likelihood of making it from grassroots to a pro contract is very slim, so scholarships are the one to aim for, as that sets you up for a pro contract much more easily.
As the years close in onto the U16 age group, an increase in players being dropped and having to rejoin the grassroots scene exponentially increases, leaving a jackpot of talented ex-academy players, waiting to be snatched up by grassroots coaches.
Especially in higher-ability grassroots teams, you would see players leaving and joining academies, players constantly getting dropped, rejoining their grassroots team and players leaving their team to join academies.
This also puts a strain on grassroots coaches alike, signing up players who just dropped from academies, seeing their players go, and being replaced by ex-academy players, just to see them go as well.
The scholarship season is a season of greetings and goodbyes, seeing our best player leaving you after scoring bags of goals every season, and then saying hello to a face you've never seen before, just being released from an academy, or saying hello to a familiar face that has returned from an academy back to the grassroots scene.
Grassroots teams always have a prime. One season where they were unstoppable, winning every game and every match. I'm sure you could think of one team that seemed untouchable during your grassroots days.
And I'm sure you remember their downfall as well. Always the same downfall. With every legendary grassroots team, comes scouts, sniffing up their players.
One day they're on top of the league, on top of the world and the next it's a completely different team, half the players in academies, and they are struggling to even stay in the league.
Every team has a rise and a fall, and academies are almost always to be blamed for it. Especially in the scholarship season. The u16 season. Players moving to academies, taking their career another step forward and players that have stopped loving the game, drinking and partying and then too groggy to get up on a Sunday morning to play the game they used to love.
I am now 14 and will be experiencing this fight for scholarships in two years, and have already slowly been working towards it, with small conversations about it being murmured on the sidelines of my grassroots games.
The thought of scholarships constantly hovers over you as a young footballer navigating the grassroots scene. It's the fine line between grasping your dream or seeing all those hours of sweat and sacrifice crumble away. It's not just a piece of paper; it's validation, it's hope, it's everything you've been chasing. And in that relentless pursuit, it's easy to forget that one signature could either propel you forward or turn all those ambitions into just memories and what-ifs.
Thanks for taking the time to read this! I hope you enjoyed the insights and felt a bit closer to the highs and lows of grassroots football. Stay tuned for more, as there’s plenty more to come. Your support and interest mean everything, and I can’t wait to share the next chapter with you. See you soon!
