Established in January 2006 by Jordan Brookes.

After 8 years of coaching and management and 7 years of after school education Jordan set about realising his dream of running his own football club. He decided to develop the club and base it at Bowdon Cricket Club on South Downs Road. This is where he had coached many children on Saturday mornings from 2003 and knew that it was one of the best venues in the area.

Jordan states that “one of the reasons I developed the club was that even although it is rewarding to coach a young player and see him move on, it is also frustrating at the same time”. He went on further to explain that he wanted to see a player not only develop from the age of 3 to 6 and to then see them get taken on by a junior team, but to establish his own club and take them right through the football system from grass roots to under 18’s.

Having spent most of his life belonging to, and working within, many clubs where much of the emphasis and attention was directed at the most promising and talented of players, Jordan’s vision for Hale United was to create a club that would have the resources and opportunity to recognise and develop obvious talent but also to be a club that every child with a love for football could belong to, enjoy and be encouraged and developed in, regardless of ability.

Jordan instinctively felt that the success and future of the club would depend mostly on a number of key factors:

• Establishing close relationships with the children and building into their game a sense of pride in their club. As already stated, valuing all the children equally.
• Hand picking all of his coaches and making sure that although they will naturally have their own individual style of coaching they will always interact and relate to the children in exactly the same way has he himself would. Jordan does not hold with coaches standing on a pitch shouting commands at the players. He firmly believes that the children should be handed options on the pitch to allow them to develop their own personal style and strengths at their own pace.
• Establishing and building close relationships with the parents. This is crucial to the club and Jordan is all too aware of how much the support and commitment that all of the parents have given him has been a huge contributing factor in the success of the club.
• No matter how much the club may grow or how well it may perform, never losing sight of the reason for which it was created for in the first place – a club for all to enjoy!

Nine years on, he has not changed his mind!
Fortunately, as a young man, Jordan has the potential to be at the helm of Hale United when his present players are someday bringing their own children along to join – this is his dream – this is his vision – to build a club that families will take to their hearts and that will mean as much to his players and parents as it means to him.

We realise that to have a ‘Club History’ for such a young club may seem strange but we start this journey full of optimism for the future.