Bringing back the fun in football

James Ellis has looked to revolutionise youth football with the formation of J Ellis Football as he attempts to make a more stress-free version of the game we love.

The company offer professional coaching from people who have experience throughout the English football pyramid.

From a former head coach at Poole Town to youth coaches at AFC Bournemouth the programme has a wealth of footballing knowledge.

However, unlike other academies that wealth of experience doesn’t come with the pressure of being in a professional academy.

Ellis said: “All it is is giving people the opportunity to play football and focuses on exactly that playing football rather than intense competition.”

James himself has a wealth of experience in the game with him being involved in coaching since university and was announced in September as the new director of football for non-league club Bashley FC.

Ellis spoke about his reasons to why he created this programme with him saying: “when I was looking at the landscape of football you basically as a young person have the choice to play for a grass roots team.

“Which for some parents is impossible as they may be working at those times or you can join an academy,

“So, you’ve either got an exclusive environment, or you’ve got an environment where it’s really structured and I’ve tried to put it in the middle.

“This is so there’s opportunities for people that might otherwise not engage in the game because they don’t meet those two contexts.”

The J Ellis programme has progressed significantly since it’s formation back in 2022.

With the programme showing record participation numbers at the start of this season J Ellis had the ability to expand to 4 teams, with them also looking to include more local teams and organisations in the future.

Unlike other programmes the promise of academy football has never been one that J Ellis has provided with James saying: “it’s really important to set expectations for young people.

“Even in the academy game the chances of making a living from football is incredibly slim less than 0.5%.

“It’s really important that we are honest and clear with young people about that because you can still be involved in football but not through playing which is so important to me.”