Richard Lee

Brentford goalkeeper Richard Lee has played a part in launching Sporting Connect, a social network for grassroots football.

In England there are 812 players for every qualified coach – in Spain there are 17.

Lee, and amateur footballer Rob Lovesey, have taken it upon themselves to improve access to coaching, refereeing, schooles, leagues clubs and players at the grassroots level of the game.

You can set up a simple profile that is free, advertising themselves in the same way as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

The Bees stopper has experience of trying to find coaches from one of his other business ventures, GK Icon.

“As the months passed, it soon became apparent that finding 18 goalkeeping coaches wasn’t as easy as I had thought it would be,” he said.

“It took countless phone calls, calling in many a favour and cutting it incredibly fine before we finally assigned the 18th coach just a matter of days before our launch.

“How could it have been so difficult to find 18 coaches out of the 1000’s of qualified goalkeeper coaches in the UK?”

“What we need is a social networking site to bring all of them together and provide simple, one-step access to the many individuals all over the country desperate to involve themselves in the grassroots game.

Lovesey’s aim is simple – to improve the quality in England’s grassroots game.

He said:“Our aim is to improve the standard of individuals, and ultimately the quality of football in the UK as a whole, by enabling further opportunities and access for all individuals in the game.

“Our social network hopes to improve an individual’s knowledge and experience, through both learning and sharing, and hopes to go some way towards fulfilling the personal development and aspirations of anyone and everyone in football.”

For more information visit www.sportingconnect.com.