Shinfield Rangers FC’s volunteers work hard to provide an award-winning wide range of football activities including league and casual football for a variety of ages, genders and abilities. See below for what we offer.
Team Training and Matches
Most of the Club is focussed on members playing in teams. Matches are held at weekends during the match season, which runs from the start of September to April or May (depending on the team).
Normally, children play on Saturday mornings, either Home or Away, on approximately alternating weeks. Fixture locations and dates are set by the League, and times depend on the opposition as much as local pitch and referee availability, so it is important that players keep their mornings clear of other engagements throughout the season.
Team spaces may be limited, particulary in the boys/mixed teams because of size limitations imposed by the League, but we may offer a limited number of training-only spaces for those aspiring to play matches when there are sufficient coaches available to run sessions safely.
We also offer casual sessions for children who are a little too young to play in matches, as well as for children with physical and learning disabilitys (see Casual Sessions above).
Click the links below for more information or select the above tab Which team can I join to find out more about team rules.
Casual sessions
Most of the Club is focussed on enabling members to play football in teams, but we also run some casual sessions too.
For 4-6 year-olds, who are too young to play in teams under FA rules, we have our Mini-AllStars Football Fun Club on Sunday mornings which run through most of the year except August.
Children with disabilites can join our Bobicats sessions on Sunday afternoons. These run in the Spring and Autumn terms when the weather is, hopefully, not too cold or hot.
Over-30s with a connection to the Club can join in with our Vets sessions on Wednesday evenings for a casual kick-about for a relaxing break and some exercise.
Click the links below for more information.
Which team can I join?
Teams are based mostly on age and friends. When we have several teams in a player’s age group, we may, from time to time, try to best match a player’s ability to the others in the team, so that everyone in the team benefits from us being able to provide a more balanced coaching approach, and for individual players to maximize their time on the ball both in training and in matches.
We we are governed by FA rules as well as those of individual leagues.
The releveant FA rules for the 2022-23 season were as follows:
18(C) A child who has not attained the age of 6 shall not play, and shall not be permitted or encouraged to play, in a match of any kind.
The relevant age for each Player is determined by his or her age as at midnight on 31 August of the relevant Playing Season i.e. children who are aged 6 as at midnight on 31 August in a Playing Season (together with those who attain the age of 6 during the Playing Season) will be classed as Under 7 Players for that Playing Season. Children who are aged 7 as at midnight on 31 August in a Playing Season will be classed as Under 8 Players for that Playing Season, and so on.
Notwithstanding the above, a child is permitted to play up in the age group above his or her chronological age group, irrespective of any changes of format or competition structure, save that a child who attains the age of 6 after 31 August is permitted to play only in the Under 7 age group, and may not play in the Under 8 age group, for that Playing Season. Girls in all female teams may also be permitted to play an age group down in accordance with Rule 4(F).
The age groups that children are eligible to play in are set out in the table below, subject to Rule 4(F), along with the permitted football formats for each of those age groups.
Children shall not play, and shall not be permitted or encouraged to play, in a match between sides of more than the stated number of players, according to their age group.