Childrens Football Parties
At first glance, this page is different from the rest of the site, which is dedicated to "adult" football parties, i.e. a social gathering themed around watching a match together.
Organising a
childrens football party is very different in lots of ways, but actually there are many similarities:
Planning - a little planning in advance will make sure your event runs smoothly, and this site is here
to help you think through what you will need for your party.
Food - the menu may be very different, but you'll be
providing food of some sort for the party guests, and we have some ideas of football themed food for your party.
Decorations
Activities - here's the big difference. The theme of the rest of the web site is a little more "sedate";
generally the parties involve friends sitting down watching a match on TV together.
Kids parties tend to be a bit more energetic, so we've added some ieas for activities, and links to other sites
which hopefully will be helpful too.
Party Bags - kids parties these days don't seem to be complete without
party bags, so we've included a few football-related ideas for what to fill them with!
As with anything, the better you plan your party, the better it will turn out. This is especially true where children are involved. There's nothing worse than being faced with
twenty eager seven year olds, all asking you "What are we going to do now?", and suddenly realising that you can't answer them!
It's always better to plan to have too much of everything - if the party is two hours, have three hours worth of activities prepared, just in case. Have alternative foods and drinks ready if possible,
as you can almost guarantee that there'll be someone who doesn't like something! And if you have too many balloons, party plates or banners, is that better or worse than not having enough?
The alternative to planning is delegation. There are plenty of people out there who will run a football party for your children for you. We're quite happy to provide links here to reputable businesses in this field.
If you are looking for someone to do this for you, we recommend that you find people who are qualified FA Coaches to at least Level 1 standard, and have some sort of CRB (Criminal Records Bureau)
check/approval. You should ask to see certificates/documents for this. Additionally, make sure you draw up a list of who is doing what. Are they providing food, decorations, etc, or
do they think you're doing that, and they're simply running the activities?
Many local sports centres or football clubs who have a youth section may be happy to run football parties for your children.
In addition, try one of these businesses:
- Goals Football Parties
- With football centres all over the UK (literally from Aberdeen to Plymouth!), Goals Football Parties organise regular holiday clubs, after school clubs and bespoke
football parties for individuals.
- Football Parties R Us
- Based in South West London, all the Football Parties R Us coaches are fully CRB checked and FA qualified. They will come to your choice of venue, and tailor the party to suit you.
- Sports Enthusiast UK is designed to promote health, fitness, and sports education. We also cater for children's football parties, where you as the parent or guardian can decide the type of party you want around your budget.
Click above to be directed to our services to reserve your birthday date. Based in the Chessington/Kingston area of Surrey.
If you are part of an organisation involved in running childrens football parties and wish to be featured on this page, please get in touch.
|
|
Whether you do the catering yourself, or you hire a venue which provides food, you will need to plan some party food, and plenty of drinks. As mentioned earlier, it's always a good idea
to have a few alternatives on hand, as you can pretty much guarantee that someone won't like whatever you've prepared!
Click photo for larger image.
|
The most obvious area in which party food can be given more of a football theme is cake. With a little imagination, football themed cakes can be made that look really special, yet don't take too much effort.
Even decorating plain cakes with
football birthday cake candles
or chocolate footballs
 can make a difference
to making the party feel like it's been given a real theme.
A little bit of green food colouring in your icing and some chocolate footballs, and before you know it you can have individual cup cakes for party bags (see photo - left).
|
Making a "football pitch cake" is simple. Just bake a sponge cake in a rectangular tin, cover with green icing, and pipe on the white lines to mark out the pitch (photos to be added
shortly).
Similarly, making a cake for your favourite team isn't as hard as you might think. Again, start with a rectangular sponge. Colour some fondant icing with appropriate food colouring for your
team's strip, and roll out to a suitable thickness (about 5-8mm is fine). Cut out into the shapes you need to form the shirt and shorts, then assemble on top of the cake. Pipe on any
smaller details if required (photos to be added
shortly).
If you're feeling a little more adventurous (and feel confident that your young guests have more adventurous taste buds!), we have plenty of ideas for
nibbles, snacks and finger food from around the world on our main site - see if there's anything that takes your fancy!
In addition to theming the food itself, a lot can be done to theme a kids football party using simple, inexpensive touches on the table where they eat.
To start with, either buy a
football party tablecover
or buy a green plastic table cover
and use white masking tape to mark out a football pitch.
Add a few football party plates
and football design napkins
and away you go!
But don't forget - the party food doesn't quite end when the party does - you'll need a selection of football themed food and treats to put in those
Party Bags too!
|
|
Kids parties these days don't seem complete wtihout party bags. In my day you went home with a slice of birthday cake if you were lucky, but times have obviously changed!
So we thought we had better add in some ideas for what you could fill the party bags - or "loot bags" - with. Some will be more appropriate than others, depending on the age
of the children and on your budget, but hopefully some of these suggestions will help:
- The bags themselves are available in a range of designs, suitable for different age grops. Here are a few suggestions:
- Football Fun Party Loot Bags (pack of 8)
- Boys Football Party Bags, pack of 8
- Football Party Bags
- Boys Football Party Loot Bags ~ Pack of 6
- Bags of chocolate footballs
are great to use in loot bags, as well as for cake decorating. Either put whole bags of them in each loot bag, or break open the bags they come in and put the chocolate footballs
in the party bags loose.
- You can buy assorted football-themed party bag collections, such as this Football Party Bags Mixed Value Pack
- Kids love stickers - they end up being stuck on school bags, school books, bedroom furniture... You can't beat them as cheap party bag fillers, so try some
Comic Football Stickers
.
Or, if the kids all happen to support the same team (or you know which teams they support), you can buy team-specific stickers, such as this
Manchester United
one.
- Kids also love collecting and trading football cards. Among the most popular these days are the
Match Attax
cards.
- Stationery items are always useful and are classic party bag fillers. We've tracked down some football pencils
,
erasers
,
pens
,
pencil cases
and complete mini football stationery sets
- Bouncy balls
are another classic party bag filler
- Football comics and magazines
- If you can stand the noise(!), no football match is complete without a football whistle
- Again, depending on the age of the children, there are plenty of affordable paperback football story books for boys
|
|
Again, decorating a room for a childrens football party needn't be difficult or expensive.
You can either choose the colours of your child's favourite team, and decorate the room with flags and banners to reflect this colour theme.
There are flags, bunting, coloured tablecloths, plates, napkins, balloons etc all on our main decorations pages.
Alternatively, you can go for a more "generic" football theme, and find some flags, bunting, banners, balloons etc with footballs on
(for examples, see right).
Whichever way you decide to go, you can get the children involved in the decorating process - either during the days leading up to the party, or for a more "sedate"
activity during the party itself (or in the event of some unexpected wet weather). Depending on the age of the children, you could involve them in:
Making paper chains
in the colours of their favourite teams.
Colouring in pictures of their favourite teams' kits.
This link takes you to worksheets that have blank kits to colour in plus colouring instructions for every team in the 2010 World Cup,
but you can adapt them for use with other teams, or have a competition to see who can design the best new football kit!
Colouring in flags of their favourite footballing nations.
This link takes you to worksheets that have blank flags and bookmarks to colour in for every team in the 2010 World Cup.
|
|
Fortunately, if you throw a football party for children, it's pretty self-explanatory, and it's unlikely they'll be disappointed if you just set them up to play a game of football
between themselves. However, you can make it a bit more fun and varied by trying some of the following, in addition to playing a small-sided match (which you can pretty much guarantee they
WILL want to do). A few ideas for quieter indoor activities are listed above, if you need them for calming the children down, or for wet weather.
Try playing a few short games in the form
of a five-a-side tournament, rather than one long ten-a-side match.
Take team photos - they provide fun souvenirs of the day for the children.
Provide medals or certificates as souvenires for the best team, player, fair play award, etc.
You can print off certificates here.
Have a penalty shoot-out competition, either individually or in teams.
Kids love pinatas - why not get a
football design pinata
for the party?
Try some games specifically developed to help children develop their football skills.
There are loads of web sites that claim to have good ideas in this area, such as Footy 4 Kids,
but most you have to sign up to some kind of subscription. Far better to speak to someone you know
(or a friend of a friend) who is an FA qualified coach or works at a local sports centre,
and get some ideas from them.
Organise team races, dribbling a ball in and out of some cones.
Set up a goal, and have the children score goals. Then move them back five steps and try again. Keep going
until only one "winner" is left.
Organise a "keepy uppy" contest.
Print off pictures of well-known football team kits or famous players, and have a football quiz.
Organise the children into teams and have a football trivia quiz.
We have links to loads of such quizzes of varying difficulty on our Football Trivia Quiz Page, including some specifically for children.
Divide them into groups of three, and give them one ball per group.
Get them to play "piggy in the middle" in their groups;
two children have to keep the ball away from the one in the middle.
This is really good training, and helps improve ball control, passing, awareness, shielding the ball, tackling...
They can learn so much from this simple game, without realising they're learning!
|
|
