This thread gave me some great insight and ideas to pursue.

develop players for higher level competition, or serve as a recreational club. without a critical mass of players, its difficult to do both at the same time. From there, will spin off a bunch of logical needs. higher player development means more coaching certifications, position coaches, club style of play philosophy, etc. Recreational will mean rules to ensure kids are having fun / which primarily means keeping parents from ruining things for them; along with general coaching training and way to help the kids who want to learn a lot do so.

I used to be a coach in the largest recreational club in North American (oakville soccer club in Ontario, Canada) and they are able to pull of both, because there are a couple of thousand players all up.

I am moving to Litchfield CT where my 5 year old will start to play this saturday - 20 kids all up in her age / male and female. to me the focus here should be fun fun and more fun - sneaking in as many skills along the way that they can.

All coaches and spectators had to refrain from talking during the match, but could clap. The girls had to direct teammates during play and not rely on coaches. Did well for under 9 year old for that match. Maybe because they were in AYSO at that team and hadn't reached "my kids going to get a scholarship" stage that it worked.

My daughter's U13 ECNL team had to call up an average goalie from U12 simply because they couldn't find a single decent goalie in their age group. Competition gets pretty intense at that age and a good goalie is absolutely essential. I also imagine that there are plenty of scholarships for good goalies out there as well.

including making travel soccer possible for them.

The guys that spun off their private club from our park district program do a lot of stuff for the kids. They want to be a high quality alternative to the win at all cost clubs, while still playing high quality soccer.

They organize service projects for the kids. They also give some modest college scholarships.

You also have the issue of whether to help kids get college scholarships to play soccer. You have to play in college showcase tournaments and develop relationships with college coaches.

Let me know if you want me to give you the contact information for the guys who spun off from our park district program.

years and spent 6 years on the soccer advisory committee for our town. I think it all depends on what kind of teams you have and what your goals are. The Park District ran the House and the travel program for the town (70,000 people).

We had a pretty big house program, especially through 4th grade. Those were parent coached and they played exclusively against other teams in our town. You would play 7 or 8 games in the fall and then again in the spring. The “uniforms” were reversible shirts. Play was supposed to be fairly even. Everyone played 2 quarters. No one plays 3 quarters unless everyone plays 2 and no one plays 4 quarters unless everyone plays 3.

The referees were local kids, jr hi and high school hired by the park district. There were no standings, although I think they had playoffs of some sort with the older grades - junior high. The House program ended with 8th grade.

Travel program played through high school but only during the season that the high school teams were not playing. Several private clubs played year round and did not allow players to play for their high school teams.

Participation in House leagues tapered off after 4th grade. The better players played travel, some kids moved to other sports and others concentrated on other activities.

Travel soccer started in 3rd grade - U9. At first there were parent coaches and they could hire a paid “trainer” to run some of the practices. The parent coach needed to get an E License. This was in the 1990’s and it was harder to find qualified trainers.

It was always tough in the travel teams to follow the Park District goals of maximizing participation while still trying to be competitive with the private clubs. Parents liked to complain and the soccer committee and the Park District would listen to the complaints. The private clubs would usually just tell complaining parents to find another club. Rory Dames, who runs the Eclipse Club and coaches the Chicago women’s pro team said his ideal team would be a group of rich orphans.

I coached my youngest Daughter’s travel team. It was the top team in the club at her age group and there was a B and C team also. At try outs, the A team coach picked his or her team, then the B team and then the C team.

Back then U9 played 7 field players and goalie with a maximum of 14 players on the team and 50 minute games. The park District wanted maximum participation so we had 3 teams of 14 players. With 6 subs for 7 field players, only 1 or 2 would play more than half the game. The private clubs didn’t care about playing everyone and one coach told me that a player who switched to her club was playing 15-18 minutes a game.

I had the players on my team pick numbers from 00 to 14. The B team player took 15 to 28. The C team took 29-42. As players moved between teams over the years, there were few conflicts. Each player had a red jersey that cost about $40 and a white tshirt with number and logo to wear if there was a color conflict. There were problems when manufacturers discontinued the club jersey. Eventually we had a custom one made for the club. Some clubs go with cheaper jerseys that they change yearly.

At U11 we played 11 v 11. Interest was weaker so I was able to have 16 players which let me play most kids 40 minutes out of 60 minutes. Again, the private clubs didn’t do that, with playing time based on ability. I found that the bottom 5 players improved greatly with the extra playing time with meaningful minutes. By U12 we made the top division in The Chicago area and went 9-9-2 against very strong competition.

After U12 we started losing kids to the top clubs which were Sockers and Eclipse. Some wanted better competition. Others were chasing scholarships. We stayed very competitive but clubs like Eclipse and Sockers had better players.

At U12 Our club picked a group to provide trainers for all of the teams which the team could decide whether to use 1 practice a week or 2 practices. It made the practices more uniform across the club.

After a few years, the club switched to having the group of trainers provide coaches for each team and the parent coach became a manager/administrator. After about 5 years that group broke off and started fielding their own teams and a new head trainer was hired.

With the travel teams, the league provided the referees. Most were pretty good. We travelled all over the area, sometimes 50 miles to Rockford and Plainfield and Hyde Park and sometimes the referees were biased, but that just the way it was. B and C teams didn’t travel so far

Some of the time the club assigned the practice fields and times to the travel teams. Park space was often at a premium.

Phasing out parent coaches made the program more expensive but it took some favoritism out of the player selection. It also improved the coaching

These days many of the parents played as kids and so I would expect parent coaches to be better.

as the terribleness goes both ways. I usually say nothing when the bad calls happen because 80% of the time my team is getting the benefit of the bad calls close enough to 50% of the time. However, in the other 20% of the time, I'm going to ask for the referee to start calling a better game and that includes me strategically noting to the referee that they just made a bad call that my team benefitted from and they need to knock it off lest one of those go against me at a crucial moment.

That throws the ref for a loop when I do that and I only do it during a dead ball so that I can explain why I'm complaining about a bad call I just benefitted from.

When I got the top job, the basketball program was the biggest in the town--something like 2,000 kids. Then soccer took over.
Some of the things I implemented:

Rewrite of by-laws.
The township sports advisory board always pointed to the bylaws if a complaint bubbled up to them. We did a near-complete rewrite to be very specific or vague when necessary. If there were problems, we could point to the bylaws that every coach and parent were given access to. No surprises. It was especially helpful regarding playing time rules for the travel program. Bylaws covered everything from draft rules, playing time rules, special rules by age level, punishments/suspensions for violations, etc.

Adherence to by-laws.
No exceptions. Even if a parent/coach didn't agree with a decision, they understood it. No surprises.

Coaches/officials workshops.
Keeps coaches current on rules, common problems to be aware of, etc. Officials--same, but also to get them to call boys/girls games the same (what was a foul in a boys game was a "caution" in a girls game. It created a dangerous situation for the girls when they figured out what wasn't going to be called)

Program mission statement.
Kind of hokey, but we wrote a mission statement that headed the by-laws. It was meant to (mostly) prevent the travel team parents/coaches from treating the players like they were all on the road to college scholarships

Answering parent complaints if the league directors couldn't handle--always emailed and spoke to parents if the LD couldn't satisfy them.

Have people run the age group leagues you trust and are strong enough to make sure the bylaws are followed. It will save you headaches. Overall, you need to set the tone and instill the culture you want.

I’m sure your local league will appreciate your help.

This may be more a Club soccer criticism than a Town soccer criticism, but I agree with poster below who identified clarity of basic info: Role of various leagues / competitions; # teams in each age group; practice expectations; travel expectations; tryout dates; team assignment dates; league schedule; tournament schedule.

Like all of you, we’re a busy family. We have 3 kids, we work, we have many interests. We’re committed to soccer and want to prioritize it, but help us out with clear, timely, consistent information that doesn’t rely on our 14 year old or a great “team mom” to enable us to plan our spring.

I have 2 kids in a large club in Georgia. The club website is atrocious. Most of the information I want - listed above - is nowhere to be found. There’s a confusing maze of leagues competing in Georgia, but the site doesn’t help characterize the role of each league and how many teams will compete in each league. There’s a link to various extra session signups, but the basics on practice times, locations, and schedules aren’t anywhere. At one point there was a whole section on our “connection” with AS Roma as a development partner, but no info of tryout dates. Madness.

I'm only sort of joking.

I signed up to help coach both kids so we were able to go to both kids games and it kind of stunk for other parents but parking was amazing and you didn't have the random "aunts and uncles" sitting in the first row yelling and the players and refs all game.

I have been involved with my town's soccer league for over 5 years now in various capacities and to be honest I am still learning. Some of my thoughts are below.

* Uniforms - I agree with the poster below on uniforms. Big thing there is to be consistent from year to year if possible. That way you can have extras in storage and as new players join and it also provides some flexibility year to when putting teams together. For example, you can always order numbers 1-15 for new teams, but have numbers 20-35 in various sizes in reserve in case.

* Coaching/Player development - This is important on multiple fronts. Most coaches are willing to coach but to be honest don't know much about the game or coaching. But in addition to helping the coaches you want to make sure your development plan included both skills on the ball and soccer IQ. It is amazing how many U-12 kids in our league can't do a throw-in or understand basic positioning.

* Refereeing - We have a junior referee program in place for our lower age levels. This allows 12 and 13 year old kids to get some experience before they become certified referees. Our hope is that as they get older they go on to get certification to do other games.

Equipment - Think about your long term goals for equipment including soccer goals if you need to purchase. How often do you want to buy new goals, etc.

Good luck.

be on a team with seven of his friends and he can only practice on Tuesdays from 6:45-7:55.

It was a nightmare in the spring as they had skating performances and dance recitals, missing most soccer practices and several games.

I cut 1 after U9, another after U10 and the third left on her own to concentrate on skating.

I arranged a summer soccer camp for the kids, plus pick up games for fun. I asked one of the Mom’s when her daughter might be available to do some of that and she had 1 free day the whole summer. This would have been in 2001.

And to add on to what you indicated about behavior controls: implement some form of a RESPECT campaign. Measure behavior of players, coaches and parents. We use a 1-5 scale locally, but whatever works. The referees actually do the judgement. The numbers are published and clubs are held accountable to poor numbers in any area.

Parent education is a huge help in this regard, but many behavioral problems at the youth level are propagated from the coaches. They set the standard, generally. They should be held to the highest standard of anyone. The kids are kids and the parents are generally ignorant. No excuse for the coaches.

but better reffing training would be my advice. I'm pretty laid back typically about the reffing. I can even tolerate a ref that doesn't call too much as long as it's going both ways. What has gotten me to be yelling at the refs is when the calls are clearly one-sided, or when a hard foul doesn't even get a call (let alone a card), or when yellow cards are handed out on minor fouls.

I have a couple of examples in the past year on this. One game, the scheduled ref did not show up and the kid line judge who was maybe 14 or 15 ended up being the main ref. I think he was also local to that soccer club and ended up being easily intimidated by the opposing coach. Our girls have never been hit so much and hard with very few calls. Plus, the barking from the opposing coach was getting the ref to call out of bound balls towards him even when they weren't. To be clear on this one, it wasn't the kid's fault - the game shouldn't have even been played, but when you drive 2+ hours to play, you'd rather get the game in.

Second one was from this past weekend. Guy looked like he somewhat knew what he was doing, but made some head-scratching calls. Gave one of our girls a yellow card when her and another girl ran into each other. I wouldn't have been bothered (much) if they had called the foul on her, but I thought there was no foul, and certainly no where close to a yellow. The guy missed multiple hand balls, including one in the box too.

I know this is going to sound funny after what I have written, but if you don't have it already, put together a parents' code of conduct. Also, not sure if there's already a ref evaluation process for coaches to provide feedback on how well a game was reffed, but that is something that is done in IN for the travel leagues.

I reffed a ton in junior high and high school: centers on rec leagues and later on kids' travel games, and lines on all levels of youth competition. Between flak from parents and coaches and the general discomfort of spending all day cold and wet at a soccer complex with no food and few bathroom facilities, I said forget it. The whole experience really soured me on soccer altogether.

I can't imagine any of it has gotten better (except maybe the facilities) in the 17 years since I hung up my cleats. If the reffing sucks, it's probably because, well, reffing sucks.

not sure if it is in response to issues with parents/coaches/players complaining about calls or whatever, but there has been a noticeable drop in quality of officiating and a dramatic increase in confrontations started and escalated by officials.

Just in the past week, I've seen umpires staring down 14 year old boys who were just asking for clarification, umpires throwing a coach out for not properly requesting time out to speak to his pitcher, numerous poor strike/ball calls, clearly one sided calls to one team, etc. That's just baseball; football is worse, and basketball is about the same.

I think that there is just such a shortage of quality guys that they're hiring anyone and everyone to do the job and these guys aren't getting properly trained. You can have parents code of conduct as much as you want, but a poor official will escalate these situations and make things worse.

Twice this season, as a basketball coach, I had an official stop the game to run across the court to get in my face and start an argument. Both times there were no escalating factors prior. Once for me yelling, "10 seconds" after what should have been a violation and another for me yelling, "Stop, somebodies going to get hurt" as the ref tried to inbounds the ball 10 seconds after a blatant foul as my girl lay crying at the other end of the court.

Multiple other times I've witnessed referees instigating arguments with parents and other coaches.

I've vowed once my kids are older and I have the time, to come back and referee and turn over my pay to our youth league.

the ball after what he thought was a bad call. Not in a wind up and throw it manner but a hard two hand slam right back into his hands. The ref who did not make the call came over put his arm around his shoulder and walk him a few feet away and explained why he shouldn't do that and why he wouldn't be doing it again.

Could have called a T which would have hurt the team but handled it in a way that got the lesson thought to a 7th grader.

A good ref has a short memory and a thick skin. Too many show up with an attitude they are going to show who the boss is. Particularly in a community soccer league they should see themselves as part of the education of the game.

I tend to agree with this poster that at youth levels Ref should be part of education of the game.

It mystifies me in U10 or U11 when the ref doesn’t explain to the players what’s happening. It takes forever for a corner kick or spot kick because the Ref signals and the kids have no idea what to do.

I get the kids need to learn the rules / signals, and the coaches need to devote some time...but at young ages I think the learning curve would improve if the Refs were encouraged to communicate more clearly and “teach” the rules.

And there just aren't enough referees to do it.

Part of the problem is that for every competition under USSF, if it's 7v7 or 9v9 it still requires 3 referees. Only 5v5 is 1.

If so, the refereeing training is performed by your state youth soccer association and according to FIFA guidelines.

I should add that the lower the level, the more likely you're going to get inexperienced referees. There is just no way around that. Right now, should feel lucky to even have referees.

I don't pretend to understand how the assignments work right now, but this is G13's league, and she is on the premiere team. Usually, I don't have much to say about the refs - they make some good calls, they make some bad ones, but overall solid refs. The 2 I mentioned were the most egregious, and one situation shouldn't have even happened - that kid had no business being out there..

Obviously the severity will vary by region. My son could be centering u17 or u18 games if they allowed it - and he's *playing* in u17 currently. Minors shouldn't be centering full sided matches until they're at least 17, but there's so few referees the guardrails are out of whack. And most kids quit officiating after they're done with HS, if not sooner.

A year ago my son played on a U-10 club team. For our Sunday games kids from the local college soccer team refereed the games. As a parent, coach, and referee myself I can honestly say they were terrible.

The issue goes beyond making bad calls. When a referee is that incompetent the game can get out of control and it becomes unsafe for the kids. The parents were really letting these refs have it, which is one of the reasons why there are so few refs.

I can't tell you how many e-mails I have gotten already from assignors this year looking for people to do games. Part of the issue is time. This past fall I usually did two games on a Saturday. With my schedule this year I am not sure how many games I will get to do in the Spring. None of the parents I know have any interest in refereeing. Between the time commitment and the garbage you hear from the sidelines it really isn't worth it.

if the game is out of control and they think someone is going to get hurt. Part of the problem is that these refs don't take control of the game, even if they aren't making great calls.

One thing I will say about the ref I complained about last weekend is that he didn't lost control of the game. He just made terrible calls.

And to be clear, I think it is appropriate for parents to have a quick outburst when they think there is a fairly significant bad call, but it should be a quick comment and should be left at that.

Nothing you say to a ref is going to do anything except make you feel better and probably piss off the ref. And you might cause an otherwise good ref to conclude it isn't worth it and stop. There is already a shortage of refs for soccer.

The younger the referee, the more the yelling is going to increase their anxiety and make their judgement worse.

Coaches and parents berate referees, the younger ones tend to quit because of it. Enter less experienced referee, cycle repeats.

When a 20 year grade 6 referee gets screamed at by coaches who have been coaching for 1/4 of that time, in a local league match, why should the 16 year old keep working when he's going to be treated even worse?

The most respectful people involved are the players themselves. That really says a lot.

All others involved in the process are secondary in terms of importance. I focus on that when I hear chirping from people that don't matter. it's also why I focus on youth matches and try to do most of my center work in the u12-u16 age range.

Information - Encourage/require all coaches to use TeamSnap. Send email from the league with relevant dates for the entire season as early as possible. Email clear policy regarding weather-related changes.

Uniforms - Make them available well before games start. If possible, limit changes from year to year so that they are being purchased only if new to the club or if larger sizes are needed. Establish a trade-in or lost/found exchange so a kid that loses a jersey mid-season can get a replacement. If the league generates revenue from the uniforms, increase the registration fee rather than require new uniforms to be purchased each season.

Additional Fees - If the league charges fees for tournaments, field usage, etc. separately, be up front about those.