Scarborough & District FA stalwart Ken Keld fears for Saturday League’s future

The Saturday League clubs and officials held a meeting last week to discuss the future of the league, with North Riding FA officials in attendance as the future of senior grass roots football in the Scarborough area seems to be facing its toughest challenges ever.

Scarborough & District FA stalwart Keld said: “At the end of the current season I will have served 50 years on the Scarborough & District FA.

"In this time I have never seen such a decline in Scarborough & District football.

"First was the demise of the Scarborough Sunday League which, at its peak, had four divisions of around 12 teams per division with Division One having some of the strongest teams in the area.

"Now the Scarborough Saturday League is struggling to survive. There are many factors causing this issue.

"First and foremost is the lack of people prepared to help run football clubs.

"The majority of players who enjoyed playing the game when someone else was willing to do the spade work are now not prepared to give something back.

"You may call me old school but I am not a great believer in the amount of substitutes per team.

“If you had 10 games on Oliver's Mount with each team having five subs that is a total of 100 players stood on the line not playing, the equivalent of providing players for another eight teams, especially the struggling teams not having sufficient players and going to the wall.

"With regards to the Minor League this started to decline when such people as the likes of Tommy Clarke, Joan Taylor, Bill Jones, Eddie Dickinson and Ken Hague decided enough was enough.

"The powers that be have done very little to support grass roots football for whatever help is given, it is more often at a cost.

"Rules and regulations regarding health and safety are almost impossible to implement due to the helpers being volunteers who are not prepared to go on this course or that, once again more often at a cost.”