Teach the beautiful game to enthusiastic youngsters.

This after school club is absolutely devoted to teaching the beautiful game of football to all ages in and around Pune. Every day children come to train and learn about tactics, game plans, formations and of course play. Spend your gap year with this inspiring foundation. The Club started in 1984 with 7-8 people getting together informally with numbers quickly rising to 25-30 within 2 months. The activity, which was started for fun and relaxation, soon turned into a regular and main feature. Today, you open any newspaper during the football season and chances are that you will read about the club on the sports page.

As this is an evening and weekend project, you can combine it with work during the morning or volunteer with the teaching projects in Pune during the day.


Your role: The club is very keen for the volunteer to be involved in every aspect of the club but mainly to bring modern training and tactical approaches to the members.

There is a wide age range of people attending the club from 6 to 30 years of age. The younger children up to 13 do not play in official matches but there is a league between clubs in Pune and boys over 14 and over can be picked for the team. Matches in the season of September to March take place 2-3 times a week in the afternoons with training sessions from 5pm to 8pm.

There are 3 main aspects to the role.

1. Training & Coaching: From 5pm to 8pm, people come to the sports ground for structured training sessions. The current knowledge of training techniques is good, the coaches have DVDs and books and over 15 years of experience. However, they need new innovation on the field as a way of motivating the members to achieve more. Your role will be to research and implement new ways of training and helping formulate team tactics for matches.

You will be expected to lead by example and include everyone, whatever their age, in your training regime.

2. League Matches: You will be required to observe matches taking place and then offer advice on where improvements can be made.

3. Fixture Arrangements: There is a lot of work that goes into arranging the league fixtures and you may be required to help if you are at the club in the run up to the season starting.

There is varying level of English spoken by the members of the club but there will always be a fluent English speaker present to assist if there are any communication problems.

What you gain: This is an excellent opportunity for anyone wanting to pursue sports coaching as a career. It gives you an insight into the nuances of training a sport. You will also see the constraints that football has in India.

Pune is a University City and has all the traits that a city of students would have. It is very lively and vibrant and although it is definitely Indian it also looks to the West with many bars, restaurants and night clubs. Mumbai is only 3 hours away and so readily accessible for trips away, as are the wonderful hill stations of the region where the climate and way of life makes you feel a world away from the other India.