Technical Development Coach Rob Peck looks at the need for Development Centres in Kent:

Gillingham Football Club currently have six Development Centres up and running throughout the County based in Canterbury, Medway, Ashford, Gravesend and Sittingbourne which opened earlier this year and the newest centre being Maidstone which has been up and running sinceJune 2010.This will give us more opportunity for young players in all four corners of Kent to become part of the only professional league club in the county.

Although the main aim is to recruit players for our centre of Excellence, during their time at our Development centres boys will still remain registered and can play with their local teams.We fully understand the importance of grassroots football and are keen to help develop players for the future whether they stay on with their local club or progress into the Centre of Excellence.

These centres are designed to provide the Centre Of Excellence in Canterbury with the new under 9 age group.The Centre of Excellence run's from U9 - U16, where at U16s decisions are made on players becoming part of our full time scholarship programme.

The Development Centres focus on young players at U6 (Yr1), U7 (Yr2) and U8 (Yr3) age group, working on various ball skills and tricks, running and turning with the ball, passing drills and small sided games.We aim to give individual players plenty of time 'on the ball' during each session, encouraging ball manipulation and confidence in possession.

Having these Centres also enables us to keep an eye on boys who at u8 don't quite make it in to our Centre of Excellence as they fall slightly under our radar, we can keep an advanced group of U9s together and maybe U10s to pick up any late developers.

All development centres will have a chance to play games against each other during the season.The selection process will operate at all centres to ensure a consistent standard of player is recruited.This will enable each player to develop at a faster rate than that might otherwise be the case.

All the children will be coached to a very high standard by our FA qualified coaches, all CRB checked.All centres run along the School term timetable all year round.There is a small charge per child per session to cover costs of facility, equipment and coaches.

Therefore we feel it is very important to start early in their development so they have the best possible chance.