As the World Cup captures the attention of football fans across the globe, many young players will be dreaming of following in the footsteps of their heroes. But how does a child kicking a ball around in a local park progress to competing on football’s biggest stage? According to Worcester City Football Club owner Simon Lancaster, the journey begins at grassroots level, where passion, participation and community support are essential.
Speaking about the impact of the World Cup on youth football, Simon highlighted the importance of harnessing the excitement generated by major tournaments to encourage more children into the game. While only a tiny percentage of players reach the professional ranks, grassroots football provides opportunities for thousands of young people to stay active, develop life skills and build confidence, regardless of their ability level.
However, local clubs face significant challenges. Financial pressures, limited facilities and a shortage of suitable pitches are restricting growth at a time when demand is soaring. Worcester City FC currently supports around 500 boys and girls across 40 youth teams, but Simon says the club is being forced to turn away potential players due to a lack of space and infrastructure.
The rapid growth of women’s football has also increased demand for grassroots facilities, with more girls than ever taking up the sport following the success of the Lionesses and other international competitions. Yet investment in floodlit training pitches and community sports facilities remains crucial if clubs are to meet rising participation levels.
As England’s World Cup campaign inspires a new generation, grassroots football clubs across the country are working hard to convert that enthusiasm into long-term participation. Their success will not only help develop future professional players but also create healthier, more connected communities and help secure the future of the game for years to come.
In this interview, Simon discusses the pathway from grassroots football to the international stage, the financial realities facing non-league clubs, the growth of the women’s game, and why sport remains one of the most effective ways to keep young people active, engaged and connected.
Interviewer: Let’s speak more about the World Cup now. It’s underway, of course, but how exactly do players progress from kicking a ball between a pair of jumpers in their local park to scoring goals on that big and international stage? And how can smaller clubs capitalise on the international excitement and secure their futures in these really difficult, challenging financial times. Well, Simon Lancaster is the owner of Worcester City Football Club and is on the line. How you doing, Simon?
Simon: I’m very good, thanks. How are you?
Interviewer: I’m all right. Have you been able to catch up on some of these games then? What have you made of it?
Simon: It’s enjoyable, isn’t it? For any football fan, I’ve not been watching many live, to be honest. The times don’t work for me. I’m a bit early to bed, early to rise.
Interviewer: Yeah, see, that’s me as well. You should listen to our armchair pundits, they’re doing well…
Simon: …Yeah, it was interesting. So, yeah, I’ve been catching up on the highlights and stuff afterwards, and then in the next morning, to be honest.
Interviewer: What’s been your favourite so far?
Simon: I think last night’s game was, well, all last night’s games were quite good, because they were just underdogs getting results, weren’t they? So, I think that’s always interesting.
Interviewer: I know we’re always rooting for an underdog, aren’t we? I am.
Simon: Yeah, we are. So, looking forward to England’s game. I think that’ll probably be the first game, or well, it will be the first game I watch live, so yeah, looking forward to that one.
Interviewer: Yeah, that’ll be good, but how, let’s talk about grassroots then. How do you go from, you know, being a big star in England or Scotland, from kicking a ball in the park to going on to football’s biggest stage? How does that pipeline work?
Simon: Wow, it’s a difficult journey for any player, because there’s so many people participating in the game, you know, particularly on the board, boys side, but the girls’ side, which we’ll talk about, I’m sure, as well, is exploding as well, but as so many boys play football to make it to the very top, it’s, you know, I think nought point nought nought 1% so it’s a, it’s a difficult journey, but, but our job at the bottom is to just incorporate all this enthusiasm and interest in the World Cup, really, and get the boys and girls playing at the bottom, giving them a good environment to play football, and then hopefully, if they’re good enough, their path will open up for them. But it’s, I think, it’s about getting them involved as young as possible and getting them enjoying it. That’s the main thing for us.
Interviewer: And how do you go about doing that? I wonder, what the state of grassroots football is right now, with financial constraints, it must be difficult, I’m guessing.
Simon: It is difficult. I mean, we’re a non-league club, and all non-league clubs struggle, struggle financially to be sustainable, and often it’s the youth that gets, misses out. Our biggest challenge is facilities, you know, getting pitches for the kids to play. We have so much demand, we’ve got 500 kids playing in our youth section now, boys and girls, which is 40 teams, which is fantastic, but we could have more if we had the facilities, but we’re literally turning, turning people away, which is never a good position to be, really, like I said, when you’ve got the World Cup, so much attention on it, getting kids interested, we want the facilities for them to play, really, so I think facilities is the thing that we’d need to really get the numbers.
Interviewer: And how would you, and how would you do that? What are the costs we’re talking about here?
Simon: Well, the costs really are to put, obviously, for them to train through the winter, you need a flood-lit g pitch, really, and they’re coming out at anywhere between five and 700,000 pounds just to install it. People, so obviously, could get the land and things like that. So, it’s there is help available, to be fair, you know. Football does have money trickling down from the Premier League for the Football Foundation to go into facilities, but we just need more of it, really. And, obviously, planning to put these things normally onto green belt, you know, it’s there’s lots of lots of challenges to get these things over the line, but if we could do that, we could get more kids involved in the game, which is ultimately where we need to be, not just for the future of the game, you know, these kids are the future players, they’re also the future supporters, sponsors, fans, aren’t they? And also, you know, like we saw yesterday with the social media and stuff, it’s a lot of attention on that, it’s getting them off their computers, off their media devices, and out playing sport in the fresh air with their friends, which ultimately is going to be a good thing for them as well, whatever level they make, you know, they’re not all gonna, well, more than, more than not, again, not going to make it. So, it’s about getting them out, learning life skills, playing sport, and enjoying themselves, ultimately. So it all stems back to that.
Interviewer: Yeah, I mean, we’ve been talking so much about the social media ban, it’s almost the perfect antidote, isn’t it? And summer’s coming up. How much of a difference have you seen that it, it makes the kids what being summer?
Simon: What it being summer?
Interviewer: Yeah, no, just how much of a difference does it make being able to participate in grassroots
Simon: Massive, you know, we have kids from sort of five, six upwards and all through the ages up into 18, really, and at all stages of that childhood it makes such a difference to be, you know, physically, mentally playing sport, getting away from this, whether that’s a 16 year old getting away from the stresses of exams, or whether it’s a young youngster getting away from other issues, you know, some of the lots of them have problems, unfortunately, in their family life, their home life, and sport is an outlet, and a really. For them, and it’s, it’s fantastic. You got other kids that maybe don’t excel in academia and sports, an opportunity for them to be good at something, can feel good about themselves. And it’s so good for kids for so many different reasons. We see so much benefit for them, really. I just encourage more and more kids to.. it’s not just football, is it? You see it when Wimbledon’s on, you see them all out playing tennis, don’ you, and things like that,
Interviewer: Yeah everyone’s dusting off the tennis mat. Where is it somewhere? Let’s find it…
Simon: But then it’s about keeping them in, isn’t it? It’s about keeping that interesting going afterwards, you know. And I think it’s the same with the World Cup, you know, they’re all interested in it now because it’s all over the media and the telly and everything, but it’s about keeping that interest going.
Interviewer: How do you, how do you do that? How do you keep them interested?
Simon: For us, it’s.. it really comes down to coaches. So, we’ve got all of our coaches, volunteers, but we try, and you know, we coach the coaches, and we try and make their coaches as good as possible, not just technically, but in terms of making it engaging for the kids, enjoyable for the kids, safe, enjoyable environment, because ultimately that’s what’s.. if they’re enjoying it, and they feel safe, and they’re, and they’re engaged, and that’s going to keep them going, isn’t it? If they’re not enjoying it, and, and those things aren’t happening, and they’re probably going to drift away.
Interviewer: So, what are some of the fun warm-up games that you, that you do, that you employ?
Simon: Again, I think it’s age, age dependent, you know, with the young ones, really, you know, they don’t want to be standing around talking tactics…
Interviewer: Do they not? What five year olds have you met?
Simon: No, they just want to run really, so it’s just, you know, different variations of games of tags and things that they know their warm up is basically a game of tag, ultimately, and it’s about getting the ball rolling and getting them playing and getting them kicking it, not just matches but different games that they’re actually learning football skills and football techniques and football tactics, but they don’t realise they are, because you’re putting it into a game situation, and that’s that’s how they learn, and that’s how they enjoy it. Obviously, the older they get, and it can start to get a bit more technical and tactical, but at the young age, it’s really about keeping the ball moving, getting them moving, having fun, and enjoying it, and then hopefully you know they stick, they stick with it, then, which is good.
Interviewer: It does, that does sound like fun, actually. Even you know, I’m not five, I’m far from that, but that sounds, that sounds like a right laugh. What about in the women’s game? I mean, how do you.. there’s always this issue, you have that kind of drop off, don’t you, when girls are kind of going into their teenage years, so how do you get them to stick around and get into football and stay in it and possibly become a lioness?
Simon: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, the women’s game has sure, you know, expanded so rapidly, really. We had no, no girls teams at Worcester City a few years ago up to five or seven now I can’t remember which, but, but it’s expanding, and again, if we had the facilities, we could have more. So girls football is expanding, which is brilliant. And when you go over, you know, the pitches where we play, it seems to be almost as many girls games going on as boys games now, which is fantastic. So the interest is definitely there, like you say, it’s keeping them in through the teenage years, and that, to be fair, is not just applicable to girls, that’s boys as well. We find, you know, that’s where the drop off does occur, because there’s lots of lots of competing factors for their time, for their hobbies. You know, they start to find going out with their friends and other things to do, and obviously they tend to, at that age, perhaps pick one sport, so you know it might be another sport they choose rather than football, as when they’re young they try and sort of choose as many as they can, really, but I think for me, as long as they remain participating in some sport, even if they choose another one, be it athletics rubber, whatever it might be, I think that’s brilliant, because, like I said earlier, through those through those years, it’s such a good disc, because there’s so much pressure on those years, isn’t there, sort of socially and academically? I think sport is such a good release, as long as they choose one that’s good for me. But obviously, we hope it’s football.
Interviewer: Do you think with the social media ban coming in next year that there could be an uptick actually in sport, because kids will have to think of something different to do.
Simon: I think, possibly, yeah, hopefully, you know, that could be one of the, one of the many benefits of it, if that is the case. I mean, you know, when I was a kid, I’m old now, I’m 48 so when I was
Interviewer: That’s not old, I just called Serena Williams old at 44 that’s not old, not having that.
Simon: But you know, there was only, you know, sport and going out with your mate, so hopefully I think that could be one of the benefits that that does come back. Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?
Interviewer: It would be nice. Let’s look forward to England, Croatia. Of course, it feels like England fans have been waiting ages for this World Cup to start. Where and how are you going to be watching?
Simon: Well, I’m probably going to be just at home with my boy. I got four boys who are all football mad, so I’ll probably be at home just watching it with them.
Interviewer: Oh, that’s going to be noisy, isn’t it?
Simon: It will be my wife, bless her, she’s not mad keen on football, but all of our boys play football, and obviously we own Worcester City, so she, she does have to put up with a lot of football, bless her. But I’m sure she’ll get involved as well, but I know.
Interviewer: That would be nice. Lots of people are doing barbecues. Are you doing a barbecue?
Simon: We’re not. No, that sounds like a nice idea, though. I might add that into the agenda.
Interviewer: Yeah, okay, yeah. And then, and then your wife might be happy with that, you know? If going, you know.
Simon: As there’s food or wine involved, she’s happy to get involved. Well,
Interviewer: Absolutely. She sounds like my kind of girl. Um, are you feeling confident about the match then?
Simon: I am well. We always are, aren’t we, as England fans? It feels like ever since I’ve been an adult, we’ve been overly confident going into every tournament, really. But maybe this will, maybe this will be the year. Let’s hope so. I think I think we’ve got a good chance, you know. But the trouble is, there’s five or six teams that will all say they’ve got a good chance, isn’t it? Isn’t it? So…
Interviewer: Yeah I mean, Spain, you know, said they had a good chance, they were the absolute favourites, and that nil, nil draw yesterday has kind of knocked a lot of people back.
Simon: It has, although you often see teams not start very well and then go into the tournament goes on, don’t you? So I remember the first World Cup I really remember was 1990 and I think, if I remember rightly, Argentina lost the first game to Cameroon, and then they sort of ended up making a final, or whatever. So, you can, you can turn it around, so I wouldn’t rule them out just yet.
Interviewer: No, I just, I just love to root for an underdog, though. Simon, good to speak to you, and I hope you do get to enjoy a barbecue tomorrow, for the sake of your wife. Thank you very much for speaking to us. Thank you, Simon Lancaster, who’s the owner of Worcester City Football Club, there, speaking about the grassroots and how you kind of get this momentum from the World Cup, from this big stage, you know, how you get that pipeline through. Of course, the World Cup is in full swing, and all eyes are going to be on England, as we were just talking about, as they face Croatia at 9pm tomorrow, but there’s been some great games so far, including the most exciting.
