Sheffield & District Junior

Sunday League

Our History

Mission Statement;

 

The Sheffield & District Junior Sunday League aims to provide the opportunity for all children living within 20 miles of Sheffield Cathedral to play football in an organised and safe environment. We further aim to be a mechanism to allow the children to develop skills, confidence and a sense of fair play, whilst striving to improve and achieve their full potential.

Origins;

 

According to Austin Minto, one of the founder members, the League has its origins in the Summer of 1969.

“It all started at a house in Raeburn Road, Gleadless, during the Summer of 1969. The house was owned by Mr Sanderson, but it was his son Ken who got the ball rolling so to speak. At that time those of us running boys teams could only play friendlies and that’s how he got to know several of us. As I can best remember he contacted myself (Deepcar), Fred Pass (Wynn Gardens), Tommy Brooks (Moreland Juniors), and Ken Maw (Tirfor Athletic), when we had got several clubs interested, we held our first meeting at the Sacred Heart Hall, Hillsborough. We held most of our meetings then at several Public Houses throughout Sheffield the main one being The Lansdowne, opposite the old Locarne Dance Hall. The big meeting to form a committee and the divisions was held at Far Lees, Gleadless. I shall always remember that night and the elation shown by all concerned in the knowledge that we had formed a boy’s football league to cover the whole of Sheffield and surrounding districts. We formed 2 divisions, Under 13 and Under 14 and we were rolling!”

 

The original two age groups were made up as follows;

 

Under 13

Gleadless Rangers
Hyde Park Rangers
St Charles
Stannsar Juniors
Sheffield Utd Juniors
Valley Juniors
Whitwell Rangers (Stocksbridge)
Wynn Gardens

 

Under 14

Coleridge Select
Deepcar Boys
Foxwood Rangers
Greenhill Rangers
Hyde Park Juniors
Halliwell Juniors
Moreland Juniors
St Charles
Tirfor Athletic
Whitwell Rangers (Stocksbridge)

The first committee was constituted as follows;

 

Chairman
Harry Charlesworth

Vice Chairman
D Marsden

Treasurer
Austin Minto

Secretary
Ken Maw

Assistant Secretary
Ken Sanderson

Registration
Secretary A Duffy

Publicity Officer
Fred Pass

Trustee
J Ollerton

Disciplinary Committee

Mr. Tester, Mr Simpson, Mr Maw.

The registration fee was £2.00

Present position;

From this small beginning the Sheffield & District Junior Sunday League, as it is now known, has grown into the biggest junior football league in the Country and we believe in Europe! Today we have 610 member clubs playing football across all age groups from Under 7 to Under 16 and have over 10,000 boys and girls (girls only play in our leagues between the ages of; 7 & 11 due to F.A. rules). A typical age group consists of six divisions A - E with 12 teams playing in each division.

 

Today 38 years on we still remain true to the original values of our first committee. Our league covers an area within 20 miles of Sheffield Cathedral, it is run by volunteers and our first paid employee Mr Bill Cooke, the Secretary The rules are agreed by our member Clubs at each AGM, subject to F.A. rules governing the playing of the game, and we charge the minimum amount required to provide the funds we need to run the league.

 

As you will no doubt realise, our organisation is complicated to say the least, and we embraced modern technology relatively early. We now have separate Registrars at each age group, and whilst we originally had designed our own computer programme to administer the League, we out grew it. We now use the FA’s ‘Full time’ programme, which has enabled us to continue to expand and we have introduced another division at certain age groups to cope with demand. We have recently invested in a professionally designed web site, which has been well received, and we hope to use this as a means of generating much needed revenue. Our current Publicity Officer performs minor miracles each week collating over 300 sets of results and liaising with the Sheffield Star and Derbyshire Times newspapers to ensure up to date tables appear regularly and parents and friends can see who scored what and for whom, team photographs are also regularly printed to keep up interest across the region.

 

We are however something of a victim of our own success, we have grown year on year, and now have reached the limit our volunteers can manage. Consequently we regularly have to turn away prospective new teams regardless of their needs.

To continue to offer the opportunities for children from all backgrounds and areas of our region to play together in a friendly organised manner we must evolve. We are currently working towards becoming a limited liability company and obtaining charitable status, which we hope to achieve within the next twelve months.

 

Our Secretaries role is now too involved to be handled by a single volunteer working full time hours for what is nothing more than a token bursary. We believe the future lies in employing a full time Chief Executive who would combine the roles of Secretary and Treasurer. This person would operate from our own premises (possibly a converted shop), from which discipline hearings and committee meetings could be held, reducing costs of hiring suitable venues. Results could be entered daily by the office staff and queries dealt with immediately instead of waiting for the appropriate person to come home and re-engage brain after a hard days work. It may even prove possible to develop an interactive web site so the players can become involved in the running of their own League.

 

The Committee would therefore become an advisory body steering the League forward to the challenges of the 21st Century. We believe we could become more pro-active helping small clubs obtain the funding necessary for survival, offering training to new managers and coaches, giving guidance as clubs work towards charter standard, helping with child protection policies and a greater understanding of ethnic and cultural diversity. We have already started this on a small scale by offering first aid courses to member Clubs, and we are looking towards organising Referee training in the near future. In essence we would be able to offer the support to our members that at present they can only dream of, and perhaps show the FA how things should/can be done.