This aims to provide an opportunity to players as young as 4 years old to start playing football, all with the aim of progressing through the entire set up and one day pulling on a first team shirt.

Current names such as Ollie Long & Jack Cornell who have been included in Mark Moores first team squads this season have done just that.

We caught up with Darren Smart, the man who is behind the set up.

Darren, give us an introduction to yourself..

I am a UEFA B qualified coach that has been coaching for nearly 20 years, during this time I have coached at Cheltenham Town, West Brom, Birmingham City, Bristol City and at Manchester United (briefly!). I also coached for Sparta in Rotterdam for three years whilst I was working in Holland.

What made you get into football at this age group?

Well, I started in 2002, as a school governor, the club was initially set up in conjunction with the school as there was nothing for younger children in the area.
I love watching the children join us as 4 year olds barely able to walk in a straight line develop and turn into good football players whilst making new friends, getting fit and having fun!

The infant set up current has 125 players registered to its club from Under 5s to Under 11s, these include 10 teams in the Seven Valley Youth League and a further three who are learning the fundamentals of the game.

So, what happens to the players once they are 11 years old?

We feed into Youth set up at u12 and have done so for the last 5 years, which means that the youth section is now entirely back filled and between us here at the infants. We provide football for the entire range of youth football (and the pre match playing ages too!)
We’ve former players playing at Cheltenham Town, Bristol Rovers, Bristol City and Southampton which we are very proud of for a small “village” set up.

The club has had some great success over the years, most recently its Under 12 side won the Severn Valleys Youth league title.

We won the league cup last year at under 11s but the real story goes far deeper. At under 8s this team we’re getting beaten by double figures EVERY week. Most of them stuck at it and at under 9s they won a few and reduced the size of the defeats. At under 10s they won more than they lost and at under 11s I think they lost 2 games all season. This year they’re unbeaten having won every game bar one which they drew at the start of the season. The side has been almost the same throughout as we don’t poach players from other teams. We work to improve the children and if results are an indicator it seems to work.

So what how does someone wanting to get into the game have to do to start?

Details can be found at ‪www.lifc.co.uk‬, we train or play EVERY Saturday all year round and provide football for boys and girls of all abilities from school reception age until school year 6 inclusive then after that they join AFC. Training and matches take place on the infant school field in Paygrove Lane.

If you’re child is keen to start then why not get in touch, following in the footsteps of some of the current Longlevens players playing today.