The Blue Card Award – Explained by Luke Chadwick

In football receiving a card is never a good thing, it’s either a yellow and walking a tightrope for the rest of the game or even worse a red one and you’re off for an early shower. Either way it’s not going to be celebrated! At the FFF it’s very different, we flip it on its head even the colour of the card!

At the end of every Football Fun Factory session our Head Coach presents a blue card not for what a child has done wrong but for what they have done right! Our blue cards are presented to the child or children that have shown fantastic human qualities throughout the sessions. This could be a number of different things, helping another child up if they’ve fallen, making friends with another child attending for the first time, helping the coach collect the equipment, it could be anything but always positive!

The power of football is huge and when used in the correct way can help children develop positive life skills that can last a lifetime. We endeavour to use football as a vehicle to promote this even more so than football skills because it’s these qualities that can shape a child’s life. Of course the kids on our programmes develop football skills as well but for me those social skills are so much more important.

Football is a game for everyone and every child will develop at a different speed but with our ethos and environment our Head Coaches provide it allows every child to be recognized regardless of their perceived ability level. The Blue Card gives the children the opportunity to be rewarded for social development, being enthusiastic, helpful, polite, friendly to name just a few more so than scoring the most goals.

Our ambition is to positively affect children through football on a mass scale, and our blue card has been instrumental in us doing that so far in our journey, to see a child’s face when they recieve one really is a sight to behold and the pride in a parents face just as much so. When played in the right way football has the power to positively impact millions of people!