THE BEGINNINGS
2012 – 2013 SOCCER SCHOOL, EALING
Legacy idea was born in 2012. Apart from playing football together at the amateur level, myself (Sinisa) and Emmanuel were also very good & close friends, sharing the same love for football and Christian faith amongst other things. Realising that we can’t play football forever (and to be honest, ‘the old knees’ started giving up!), we’ve decided to go on the coaching course and in 2013, after successfully completing Level One in Football Coaching, started up Legacy Soccer Academy. Both fathers of 5 year old boys at the time, we’ve decided to start up a Soccer School in Ealing, West London.
Initially, group of around 12 children of various ages and abilities signed up for Saturday morning lessons held at Blondin Park, Ealing. Throughout the first year, the number was rising and many children from the local & surrounding areas joined the Soccer school – word of mouth advertising was doing wonders! Occasionally, we would get the opportunity to work with a local church adult team that would train at Blondin Park on Saturdays which gave us a chance to improve and sharpen our coaching skills. Overall, those first years were challenging but satisfying – many children that started at young age would flourish and thoroughly enjoy Legacy Soccer school. In many ways, we were testing the waters and finding our feet in this new challenge, but felt that we were making a positive difference in young people’s lives. Exciting times ahead!
MOVING HOME
2014 – 2016
As we both lived in Hillingdon, travelling to Ealing every Saturday morning was getting harder and more challenging. We’ve both looked at the situation and, after a little research, realised that there really isn’t any Soccer schools in our area. So, we’ve decided that move to our neighbourhood would be the best. Although initially we didn’t want to leave Ealing Soccer school altogether, after a few months we’ve discovered that it would be tough to combine the two on the same day.
Hillingdon project was born! This time we’ve decided that a bit of advertising would help – so, I’ve designed some leaflets and off we went with door to door leafleting in Oak Farm & Long Lane area. I must admit, I didn’t particularly enjoy that part, but raising the awareness had to be done somehow. We’ve also had website and started getting engaged on Social media as well.
In the first year of starting Soccer school in Hillingdon, we were overwhelmed with response and loved the fact that, once again, we were making the difference in the community. We both continued our progress as coaches and completed Level 2 in Coaching football. Children of all ages were joining and soon we would find that we would need more work force. Volunteers are not easy to find so we actively looked to get someone with plenty of enthusiasm, was good with children and loved football. Enter Annie Hewitt. After completing her Level One course, Annie came and looked after the youngest group, 5 to 7 year olds and did an amazing job. Thank you Annie! At that stage, we have formed an older group of boys & girls who would soon start to ask – “When are we going to play a match?” The path towards starting up a club was open…..
NEW ADVENTURE IN HILLINGDON
2016 – 2021
After our maiden season as U10s in Chiltern Churches Junior Football League (CCJFL), in 2017 Legacy has officially become a Football Club affiliated to Middlesex FA. CCJFL is a Saturday junior league that really suited our ethos and philosophy and soon we had two teams – U11s Lions and U9s Leopards. Soccer school was still growing and at this stage Annie left to pastures anew, so we’ve acquired services of one of the Dad’s (that’s how it usually goes) who happened to be an FA Qualified coach with plenty of coaching experience. Enter Mr Jude Barrell.
As Jude faced new challenge of working with Soccer school children (5 to 8 years of age), one of the other Dad’s stepped forward and offered his help. Enter Dan Coker. Another one with great experience of working with children, this time not as a qualified coach but as a Primary school teacher. Both Dan and Jude have proved to be an invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration for the kids and they have immediately bought into Legacy philosophy. As far as myself and Emmanuel are concerned, we are very lucky and privileged to have them both in our ranks and will continue to do so as long as possible.
Jude has since worked with our newest team, U8s Jaguars, soon to become U9s Jaguars joining the CCJFL in season 2018-19. Dan is an assistant coach to Sinisa with U11s Leopards. At this point, our Soccer school didn’t have a dedicated coach, so we searched again only to find one of the Dad’s interested in filling the gap! Enter Tich Chihaka, who we’ve equipped with Level One coaching and who’s taken our Soccer school group.
CLUB TRANSITION
2021 – PRESENT TIME
In summer 2021, Sinisa, one of the founding members of Legacy Soccer Academy resigned to pursue other ventures.
Emmanuel, who was then the coach for the U12, stepped in to take over Sinisa’s team U10 Tigers with the help of assistant coach Kelly Barter. The team then went on as U11 Tigers the following season to compete in annual summer tournament 2022 at Chesham United, in which they managed to get to the finals but lost by smallest of margin to a fantastic team. Great effort, well done to the team, the coaching staff and parents.
The Legacy idea continued. In the following season we dissolved our older team U14, coached by Dan Coker at the time. Another team was born out of our soccer school, the Lions U10. The Lions are managed by Ben Murray and Ramon Rizk who are both level one FA qualified coaches. The team joined the Chiltern Churches Junior Football League (CCJFL), and that meant Legacy now had 3 teams in
the league – U10 Lions, U11 Cheetahs and U12 Tigers.
In 2022/2023 season the U10 Lions struggled in their first number of games as this was their first season playing in a competitive league. By the latter part of the season, they’ve gained some consistency and credit to all staff and coaches for their effort. The U11 Cheetah continue to improve every year with a fantastic help from coach Keyur Desai. In the same season the U12 Tigers also continued their development – Coaches Emmanuel Aidoo and Kelly Barter successfully lead them to finishing second in the U12 Blue League to gain promotion to the Red League for the 2023/2024 season.
Legacy FC continues to use the soccer school as the feeder to the Legacy Football Club by introducing another age group, U9 Leopards, into the Chiltern Churches Junior League in 2023/2024 season. The team is currently coached by Dan Coker with Sohaib Khan supporting.
The club is still developing young players with support from small businesses within the area. Now each of the four teams in the league has different
sponsor, which is fantastic news as we continue to grow more in the coming years.
