From Summertown Stars Chairman, Jim White

Welcome to the Summertown Stars website, home of the biggest young people’s football club in Oxford.

This season we have more than 400 playing members, both boys and girls. In fact, we are the only club in Oxford that runs teams at every age group from under-7 to under-18. In several cases, we have more than one team, showing the depth of interest in junior football in our area.

Although we are growing so quickly, our ambitions do not stop with numbers. Already we are an FA charter standard development club, winning the county award as the best in that category in 2006 and 2008. But we are actively working towards the next rung in the ladder, that of being an FA-recognised Charter Community Club. To gain such recognition the club has to meet stringent criteria on facilities, coaching and pastoral care. We have forged links with a club in the Peckham estate in South London and regularly undertake exchange programmes with them. Plus we have an active arrangement with a school in South Africa to which we send our used kit.

All this means you can bring your children along to Summertown safe in the knowledge that they will be looked after by qualified coaches, who have been checked and passed by the CRB and who all actively endorse a policy of encouragement and player development, rather than the win-at-all-costs mentality that pervades so much youth football. For instance, Julian Dark, who is our coach at under-7s has recently won the South East regional award as coach of the year, going on to be runner up in the national championships. There could be no-one better with whom to start a football career.

Here we welcome children of all abilities. We have three girls teams, at under-10, under 12 and under-14, plus a girls development pool under the tutelage of John Spooner, which meets every Saturday at 10.30 at Five Mile Drive and welcomes girls of any age. And we are building a visually impaired squad, run by Jo Kalies, the coach of our under-14 girls.

If you would like to join in the fun, contact the relevant age group manager, or get in touch with me if you have further queries. Some of our age groups are full for competitive matches. But most managers will do their best to include newcomers in training sessions and friendly games. Our matches are played at Cutteslowe Park for the most part with overspill pitches at our old home ground at Five Mile Drive We have links with the Oxford University Press Sports Club to enable our older boys to progress through to men’s football when they graduate from Summertown.

Oh and we run an annual five-a-side tournament at which the organic burgers are legendary. Why not come along and join in the fun.

Jim White, Chairman, Summertown Stars AFC