What is our USP? – An Article by Luke Chadwick

The first thing people often think about when they hear about the Football Fun Factory is our football inflatables. Of course they are incredible! Who wouldn’t love our inflatable pitch, goal and target darts board. But the Football Fun Factory is so much more than just the inflatables.

We actually don’t consider the inflatables our main USP but of course part of it, the power they have to engage children from the ages of 2 – 12 years old is amazing. They really do help us create memories that will last a lifetime, but they would be nothing without our superstar head coaches and the Football Fun Factory brand.

A lot of the time they attract children and parents to our programmes but they don’t keep them there, what keeps them coming along is the friendliness, energy, and enthusiasm of our superestar Head Coaches and the ethos of The FFF. We endeavour to offer football to every child that has the appetite to play the game whatever their ability or experience level.

In my opinion football has gone too far down the talent development route for children still so young. The most important aspect of any child playing sport is enjoyment because that’s what keeps them playing it. Falling in love with any activity is key to prolonged participation and when it becomes too serious too early is when children lose enjoyment and stop playing.

It is the responsibility of the coach to build an environment where every child feels safe and valued to express themselves and have fun. All too often it’s the perceived talented children get more attention which is wrong, every child attending a session should get the same attention and be challenged but allowed to develop at their own speed.

At The Football Fun Factory we of course support the children in football development but even more important to us is human development. Football has huge benefits to everyone that chooses to play it and when used as a vehicle to develop life skills to young people is when it is most powerful. Teamwork, communication, fairplay, being a supportive team mate to name just a few are qualities that can last a lifetime if really focussed on in those formative years.

And that’s what I believe is this USP of The FFF, how we set ourselves apart from others. Yes the inflatables are great, I love making worldie saves in the goals and I’m over 40 now!! But it is what goes with the inflatables that I’m so proud to be a part of, a team of people that have a huge passion for football coaching but more importantly they care about how every child develops life skills on our programmes.