Withdean Youth FC is a Sussex FA affiliated grassroots football club offering opportunities for junior grassroots football in the South East of England.
The club was established in 2000 in Brighton when Alan Pook started the first few teams with friends and family connections. Teams enjoyed much success and built a reputation of being successful as teams were prominent in most age groups. However Alan’s connections with Worthing FC and BHA having a hold on The Withdean Stadium led to Alan and many of the aspiring youth players to transfer their interests to Worthing FC. Ryan Gayler meanwhile was busy establishing teams in the mini soccer sections as Graham Farmer took the reins as Chairman. Grahams departure after a year due to his boys success both in football and golf led to Ryan taking over as Chairman in 2006.
Since then Withdean Youth FC has gone from strength to strength with new teams established through local soccer school ‘5 Ways Soccer’ and its owner Ben Lewis. Our partnership with 5 Ways Soccer continues to this day. Ben has been a volunteer at the club for many years and continues to be our current Vice Chair as well as Head of Boys Football. His wife Danielle took the reins as Chairperson in 2014. In 2016 Jason Harris became co-Chair alongside Danielle following our successful application to become a FA Charter Standard Club.
In 2018 Danielle stepped aside due to the success of her netball academy 5 Ways Netball. Jason took over as Chairman at Withdean Youth FC.
In 2015 the club created a project to get more girls involved in football and following a local school campaign we began to see our girls section increase. In 2019 we entered into a partnership with Brighton Galaxy Girls Academy and created the Withdean Galaxy Grils section at the club. Our partnership with Brighton Galaxy remains today.
The club is one of if not the largest grassroots youth football club in Sussex with 30 teams (18 boys and 12 girls). The club prides itself on equality offering football to children to U18.
The club has a number of junior grassroots football teams which play in the following leagues:
Mid Sussex Youth Football League
Sussex Sunday Youth Football League
Sussex County Women and Girls Football LeagueÂ
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