ABSTRACT
In England, Football in the Community (FitC) programmes was formally established in 1986 by the Footballers’ Further Education and Vocational Training Society. At this time, English football was suffering from serious economic and social problems (e.g. the height of hooliganism) and FitC programmes were established to ‘do good’ in the community and, in part, help to reconnect professional football clubs with their local communities.1 FitC programmes (typically registered charities and the community arm of football clubs) are now found in the majority of professional football clubs in England and Wales.2 FitC schemes often use the ‘brand’ of the football club as a powerful tool for engagement,3 however they are (typically) run as a separate (organizational) entity to the football club, with many having their own staff and independent funding streams (excluding some payments in-kind from the host club).4 Initially, FitC programmes concentrated on the provision of grassroots football coaching with children, however, in 1997 the New Labour government identified football as a potential key deliverer of a range of policy objectives in areas
as diverse as health, education, community cohesion, regeneration and crime reduction.5
