Boreham Wood Football Club are a nonleague community football club who play in the Conference South Division.

The club started a football/education scheme back in 2002 with sixteen boys and since that time, the programme has become the largest and most successful scheme of its kind in the United Kingdom.

When the club first started PASE (Programme for Academic and Sporting Excellence) our aim was simple… we wanted to stop talented young footballers from falling through the net, and give them a chance to progress their talent with top quality coaching.

More importantly the club felt that we could create an environment where many of our young men could continue their education and achieve a higher education qualification, as the majority of our scholars would not have continued in their studies.

The scheme has grown steadily over the past nine years, and we now have 200 young scholars, who play their football here at BWFC and are educated on nine separate education sites, in and around the North London and South Hertfordshire areas. The club has been extremely successful on the PASE football front over the years, with over 180 boys from the scheme now playing semi-professional football within the non-league pyramid.

We also have other boys now playing professional football. Presently we have 5 boys who have represented England schools and colleges at various levels. As well as a number of boys who represent their respective counties. As I’m sure you can imagine, this is a great honour for both our boys and our club.

On the competition front, PASE are now recognised as one of the most successful schemes in the Country. Some of the competitions we have won include:- ‘The Southern Counties Floodlit Youth League’ for the last 3 years. The ‘National Conference Cup’ (second only to the FA Youth Cup in terms of prestige) we have also reached the final twice in the last 6 years .Then there are our county cup victories and numerous other league titles and affiliated cups, which we continue to win.

In the FA Youth Cup, we have reached the First Round Proper on many occasions, (where pro Academies then enter the competition). Presently we feel we have a particularly gifted group of young men. In fact we have tested them in a number of prestigious friendlies, against sides from Tottenham Hotspur, Reading, Watford Football Club, Leyton Orient and Luton Town. To everyone’s delight, we have only lost two close games and won the other three!

With all this in mind, we hope that the next two years, will be our most successful to date and we will aim at progressing even further in the FA Youth Cup… This would be achieved by reaching the third round proper, where we would hope to fulfil a club dream and meet Premiership opposition.

We believe we are well regarded within the professional football community, and many of our boys are now being looked at by professional clubs. The success seen at BWFC in football and education terms, is unparalleled in the Non-League game.

However the most important part to our scheme is the education and this also makes our work more rewarding. We want our players to value education highly, so no matter how talented they are as individuals they must understand they will not play a minute of football, unless they are up to date with all assignments and coursework in their subjects. We believe this policy teaches all boys that hard work is rewarded, and to get something good out of life, you have to put hard work into it! The facts are that many of our boys, unfortunately will not be good enough to make the cut as professional footballers. So it is vital that they enjoy their football but achieve a qualification that can be used in the wider world after their time with us on the scheme.

We have through our partnerships with schools and colleges, educated and coached over eight-hundred scholars since 2002. Who have either worked towards their qualifications at the club, or have graduated from schools or colleges with higher education credentials, including construction courses, A-levels and B-TEC Diplomas.

Another 16 of our boys last September went off to University, which is again a wonderful progression when you consider that many of our boys would have left school and not continued with their education.

The professionalism, coaching and facilities the club has developed and improved over the years, is critical in making the scheme possible. The club has a full time medical department, which deals with all the players injury, fitness and nutrition concerns… We have six UEFA and FA licensed coaches… Two working rehabilitation gyms… Andy Gray type smart boards, enabling us to review matches and go through tactics and pattern of play with the boys… We have in house classrooms with computers for the students to catch up on assignments… We have a student canteen and we have three new mini buses for away travel and post match drops off points for players . . . .

The changes at BWFC have been truly dramatic and again this is only been possible over the years with

the help of our main partners COLLEGE OF HARINGEY & NORTH EAST LONDON, OAKLANDS COLLEGE, THE BEAUSANDVER GROUP, our main sponsor CARDIF PINNACLE plus ELSTREE & BOREHAMWOOD TOWN COUNCIL and HERTSMERE BOROUGH COUNCIL.