The FA’s ‘Play Football’ Search Engine

Looking to Recruit Players?

Derbyshire FA
Use The FA’s WGS and ‘Play Football’ search engine to help you build your squad

It can sometimes prove to be a challenge for a club to recruit new players or develop the size of squad now required to get through a season. Just finding 11 players for a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday morning can on occasions pose a real challenge. 

If this starts to happen regularly then teams start to disappear, taking with them divisions and even whole leagues.

There are however millions of people who still want to play and now for the first time The FA and Derbyshire FA can help to recruit players for your club. Whether it’s a cat like keepers, rock hard defenders, free scoring strikers or just someone to make up the numbers the FA’s improved ‘Play Football’ search engine will direct players to those clubs in their locality who are keen to recruit.  

The FA’s ‘Play Football’ search engine is the best way for participants to research their local opportunities and get a comprehensive idea of what’s available. We’ve now improved the experience so that you can now;

  • Search by format - Adult Male, Adult Female, Youth, Just Play, Disability. 
  • Search by day or time.
  • Search by club name.
  • Search by postcode or area name.
  • Guidance (search) on playing standard so that you can find the right game for you.
  • Access ‘Play Football’ on the FA or Derbyshire FA websites or any partner organisation that wishes to host this search engine. 
  • View your search on a PC, laptop, tablet or mobile.

However the big difference we want to achieve is to invite clubs to provide some details about themselves that will encourage users to contact them directly to enquire about opportunities to play. Instead of just getting a list of clubs – some of whom won’t be suitable – we want to provide all clubs with the opportunity to describe themselves – the background and history, the league that you play in, club facilities, teams that you run, training arrangements, fees, coaching, playing record, club ethos, social events etc. 

You can provide these details in the same way that you provide other key club details by logging onto the FA’s Whole Game System and completing your club profile in a simple text box. It’s possible in your profile to list forthcoming events – trials, open days, club festivals and then remove these when the dates have passed. The ‘Play Football’ search engine will display any details you list in your WGS profile. 

What we also want to do is to translate someone’s search into a club enquiry so every club profile will include a ‘contact us’ box that if completed will send an email off to your nominated club contact. Doing it in this way is far more likely to result in new players turning up at your club.

You can download this document to find out how you can help us to make these changes.

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