Through Dave's work as Wormley Youth Chairman, he has been the driving force behind the development of the philosophy “to have fun and help everybody reach their potential at whatever level that is”. This has enabled all players at the club to be provided with a high level of coaching, whether entering the club aged 5, right through to Under 16s.

Dave has played football all his life, mainly as a striker, and continues to play for Wormley Vets today. Dave had a spell in non-league football into his early twenties, firstly a season at Woking in their reserves and then a few seasons with Banstead Athletic, then in the Isthmian League which is now sponsored by Ryman. He tells us his highlight was an FA cup goal in his total of 15 minutes of FA Cup football, pulling a goal back for Banstead Athletic against Wokingham Town after coming on as a substitute in the 1st qualifying round. Dave started his football career playing in and around Carshalton, where he was brought up, and then locally when he moved to Cheshunt when he got married in 1990. Dave has also been Player-Manager of 2 different Sunday teams, firstly Fairfield, a team who played in West Wickham and later for Eleanor Cross, who played in the Mercury Waltham League.

Dave’s move into youth football volunteering came in 2001, when he started helping run his eldest son’s Under 8s team at Wormley Youth. After this he started an Under 11s at Wormley Youth for his youngest son which, for Season 2015-16 become Lings Elite FC Under 18s.

Dave has been Chairman of Wormley Youth since June 2011 and has invested huge amounts of time and effort into providing local community players with the best environment and level of coaching he possibly could without increasing costs to the parents/guardians. Wormley Youth were awarded the FA Chartered Standard mark in March 2014 and were recently runners up in the FA Charter Standard Club of the Year in Hertfordshire category, as part of the FA Community Awards presented by McDonalds. A great achievement, after such a short time being a Chartered Standard club.

Dave brought Martin Ling to the club in August 2013 after presenting his structure and vision to him. At the time Martin said “Dave, after reading your development plan, I would be more than happy to both endorse and help out as much as I can with your great ideas”. Dave has worked closely with Martin on the Wormley Youth Development Committee ever since and, in March 2014, they presented their new Player Development Policy to all at the club, with an integral part of that being their senior development ladder. This showed how they would promote players, when ready, from u16s through to u23s through a 4-team ladder that also included an u18, u21 and u23 team playing in the Herts Senior County League. In their first season, the u21s won the first Herts FA u21 League and also the U21s plate final. This team also included 6 players from the u16s who played in a few games towards the end of the season.

Dave suggested the idea to Martin of launching Lings Elite FC to provide a natural continuation of this successful formula beyond youth football. Martin is a partner who shares Dave’s philosophy and together they are working to transition players from youth to senior football in the right way.

So now the next chapter is beginning and exciting times lay ahead!