A worrying lack of youth footballers progressing to the adult game

In response to our recent article on grassroots football, we received this fascinating insight from Pete Evans, who was secretary of the North Devon Youth League for many years and is currently the vice chair.

“Several years ago, I was asked to do a survey of team numbers in the youth league to see if changes being brought in at that time had an impact on participation numbers,” said Evans.

“Your article prompted me to revisit the exercise and to look at the adult leagues at the same time.

“One reason youth football has remained resilient is, I believe, down to the fact that it has adapted its formats according to age. Even in the late 1990s, I remember under 11s playing 11v11 on full-size pitches with full-size goals. Now there are formats for 5v5, 7v7, 9v9 and 11v11, with varying pitch sizes and four different goal sizes according to age.

“One stumbling block towards adult football is the lack of an Under-18 League in North Devon, which would be a good transition for those not quite ready for the adult game, The Youth League has tried on numerous occasions to establish one but hasn't met with sufficient interest from clubs.

“To their credit, the adult league set up a fourth division just a few seasons back with the aim of teams consistently made up of younger players.”

The conclusion to some of the findings from Pete’s research indicates that the number of adult teams in the North Devon League has dropped from 62 competing sides in the 2005-06 season to an average of 43 teams per campaign over the past four years.

In contrast, the North Devon Youth League had 44 teams represented in 2006-07 and this rose to an impressive 67 teams last season. While data from girls’ football only goes back to the 2017-18 season, it is encouraging to record there are 27 entries in the junior female leagues this season.

As Pete concludes: “The drop off in adult football would be even greater if two other grassroot leagues in North Devon – The North Devon Sunday league and the Kingsley League numbers were included. Both these leagues are now defunct. If those teams were included in the figures the number of grassroots teams in North Devon would have fallen from 93 in 2010-11 to 39 in 2024-25!”

These numbers pose the obvious question of why the transition from youth football to adult football is not working?