The Reaching Higher Football Academy is a FREE turn up and play football academy welcoming young people aged 11 – 18 years old. With an FA Qualified coaching team ranging from FA Level One to UEFA B, we deliver high quality sessions for players of all abilities and challenge young people both on and off the field using our very own ‘Player Profile’ approach.

Our Head of Coaching, Bryan, has been busy. He has been a part of a BBC Bitesize Project on Careers.  Click on the link to see exactly what he says about being a Football Coach. https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/articles/zhs2bdm

Boy's Football

The boys academy runs from U12s to U21s and we play our competitive football within the London County Saturday Football League.  Throughout each season each age group are provided with various opportunities including football experiences, tours and showcase matches with semi-pro and pro clubs.

Training Sessions are held at Coloma Convent Girls' School, Upper Shirley Rd, Croydon CR9 5AS

Monday 7.45 - 9pm

Friday 5.45 - 7pm

The training sessions are held during TERM TIME ONLY

If you are a young person or a parent/carer that’s interested in finding out more about what we do please contact  [email protected] directly. Alternatively you can simply come down to our Saturday morning or Monday evening sessions ready to play!

Our Ethos and Philosophy

RHFA focuses on developing young people to become leaders of their own lives, and the characteristics needed to match that helped us to form our core values. The core values have different weightings and have been discussed as what we deem to be more important for the Reaching Higher ethos.

Attitude - 50% 
Attendance - 30%
Ability - 20%

- Making young aspiring footballers into well rounded people
- Positive, supportive and relative to the young people
- Give players the opportunity to express themselves

Transferable Skills from Football to Education and Life

Through our Player Profile programme we focus on our young people’s psychological and social development the transferable skills give the young people the opportunity to see how it could also have an impact in their everyday lives.

- Responding to people in authority 
- Awareness of decisions 
- Dealing with highly pressured situations
- The importance of team work and having a reliable support system 
- Importance of effective communication 


A massive thank you!

The Reaching Higher Football Academy would like to thank - Kick London, Sport England, Surrey FA, Fulham Foundation, London Sport, Football Foundation and Palace For Life Foundation.