Dean has been running the U11s at Hackney Marshes since his son was six. His son is now twenty two and plays semi-professional in the Isthmian League. Dean is still there, 8.30 on a Saturday, cones in the boot, forty quid a month of his own money covering the balls that do not survive the season.

The FA counts 2,473 grassroots coaches on its volunteer register. The actual number is higher. Nobody registers the dad who runs the U7s because the other dad moved away. Nobody registers the sixty year old ex-player who turns up at a club in his own town because the U13s need someone. Nobody registers the single mum in Leeds who got her Level One certificate in 2022 and now coaches three sides.

We followed three of them for a weekend.

Dean, Hackney Marshes

Dean's Saturday starts at 6am because the Marshes get used for three separate leagues and you have to get to your pitch first if you want the flat one. He runs on four pitches over the course of the morning. He pays for the training bibs out of pocket. He is on first-name terms with the grounds crew, who give him the code to the storage shed.

"The lads who went through my U11s in 2015, most of them stopped playing at fifteen. The two who did not, one of them plays for Leyton Orient's first team now. I do not take any credit for that. He was always that good. But I taught him to trap a ball with his weaker foot and he remembered."

Ade, Birmingham

Ade runs a girls' U14 side in Handsworth. She is a primary school teacher during the week. Her squad has gone from nine players to twenty three in eighteen months. She credits it to one thing: making sure every girl gets fifteen minutes a game, even the ones who cannot yet kick the ball straight. "They get better. Or they do not, and they have a laugh anyway. Neither is a problem."

Chris, Cornwall

Chris's club folded in 2023 because the pitch was sold. He started another one nine months later. They train in a school hall on Tuesday nights and on a cow field on Saturdays. They have seventy nine players across seven age groups. He has not been paid a penny.

Why this matters

Most football media writes about the top of the pyramid. Striver writes about the bottom because the top does not exist without it. The next generation of Premier League players is being coached this Saturday, for free, by people you have never heard of. We think you should.