In brief: Jersey Bulls players spent half-term week coaching children aged four to 14 at Heathfield as part of a growing partnership with Sports Bug. The collaboration links grassroots football development directly to the island’s flagship club, with a pathway that now begins at just 16 months old.
Bulls Players Swap Boots for Whistles
If you ever wanted proof that professional footballers can be useful off the pitch, look no further than Heathfield last week. Jersey Bulls players Jack Lumsden, James Sunley, Jarma Mohamed, Harry Curtis and Sammy Henia-Kamau traded match-day intensity for coaching bibs, delivering five days of half-term football camps for young islanders through their partnership with Sports Bug.
Children aged between four and 14 took part in sessions that, according to the Jersey Evening Post, gave families both quality childcare and top-level football coaching in one package. Not a bad deal, it has to be said.
The camps at Heathfield add to Sports Bug’s existing holiday clubs at La Moye and Le Rocquier, broadening the reach of a programme that has expanded at a remarkable pace since Danny Cutland took over the company in 2021.
From Six Hours a Week to 350
Sports Bug was founded in 1997, but its recent growth is the real story. When Jersey emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, the company was delivering just six hours of coaching a week across schools and nurseries. Five years on, that figure stands at around 350 hours a week, with more than ten full-time staff and a growing holiday camp programme.
The partnership with Jersey Bulls came about, Cutland explained, because of Sports Bug’s established reputation and its safeguarding standards. “We were approached by the Jersey Bulls because of our existing reputation and our high levels of safeguarding, like DBS checks,” he told the Jersey Evening Post. “We already had Bulls players working for us, as well as loads of academy players, so they asked us if we wanted to do a partnership.”
Cutland has handed responsibility for the football offering to Sunley, who has been appointed head of football. Sunley brings considerable credentials: experience coaching children across multiple sports, a place in the Bulls first team, and a background playing for Fulham. Cutland’s ambitions for the programme are not modest. “We want an after-school club with 100 children playing football per night,” he said, adding that Sports Bug already works with the majority of schools on the island and hopes to reach all of them by the end of the year.
Baby Bulls and Beyond
The pathway into football now starts at a remarkably early age. Coach Corey Heath runs “Baby Bulls” sessions for children from 16 months old. “It’s literally just fundamentals, like simply kicking the ball,” Cutland said. “They’re only half-hour; it’s more like nursery sessions.” Sports Bug then takes youngsters through to the age of 14, at which point the Bulls Academy provides the next step.
Sunley described the appeal of the model in straightforward terms. “If you look at a Saturday, when we’re celebrating and doing autographs after the games, then seeing them there on a Monday and Tuesday in the camps, it’s really cool,” he said. “The likes of Jack, Sammy and Jarma are role models to some of the children, so to be coached by a role model, that’s the pinnacle.”
The work extends well beyond mainstream football development. Much of Sports Bug’s school-time coaching now involves children with special educational needs, including ADHD and autism, and staff provide one-to-one mentoring at La Passerelle. The Jersey Evening Post reports one pupil who discovered a love of football through the programme now attends Saturday morning sessions, with the school using those sessions as a behavioural incentive.
Sunley summed up the broader ambition: “On top of developing them as footballers, we want to develop them as people, learning key skills that can be transferable in day-to-day life.”
Source: Jersey Evening Post
