Does my child need to be in a football team?
As long as your child is playing consistently and getting good coaching in some capacity they should be improving, regardless of whether they’re in a team or not.
We speak to a lot of worried parents who can’t get their child into a team due to waiting lists etc.
They think it’ll impact them in the longer term but that simply isn’t the case…as long as they’re doing some sort of football as above.
We’ve had so many examples of this over the years.
In a lot of cases, joining a team later on has helped many of the children we’ve coached – again, as long they’re getting good coaching and playing football consistently elsewhere.
If you’re a worried parent who can’t find a team for your player – control what you can control:
Find a place where they can play football consistently
Sign them up to after school football clubs
Get them to the park with their friends as much as you can
Get out yourself and play with them as much as you can
At some point you’ll find a team and the fact they’ve played consistently elsewhere will help make that step much easier 
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