English Schools' Football Association

We are recruiting for a Graduate Intern to join the ESFA’s PR & Comms team 4 days per week for the 2018/19 season! The post is a voluntary role, however could give the right candidate some fantastic work experience with the potential to convert the post to a paid position for Graduates for 2019/20, depending on funding.

The English Schools’ FA is the governing body for schools’ football in England. We are a membership charity and our key activities include:

• Providing a national competitions programme each year: This year, over 40 competitions are being run and each culminates in a national final at a prestigious football venue;
• Defining the regulations under which schools’ football is played;
• Supporting our membership to increase opportunities to play football, particularly (currently) for girls and for players with a disability
• Providing opportunities for school pupils to play representative football at district, county and national level, the pinnacles of which are the Under 18 English schoolboys’ national team and the Under 15 English schoolgirls’ national team.

The ESFA has a small paid workforce but its activity is primarily run by volunteers. We are now offering a graduate internship in our Stafford headquarters. The opportunity is open to graduates from bachelors, honours or foundation degree programmes in a related subject. The ESFA also welcomes expressions of interest from those in the “sandwich” year of their degree.

If you feel you would be an ideal candidate for this opportunity, the full details can be found on our vacancies page here. Completed expressions of interest should be submitted to Andrea Chilton, CEO by no later than 31 May 2018.

Testimonial from current intern:

Having graduated from university last year, the internship with the ESFA was a great opportunity for me. I have been working 4 days a week in the marketing team, working for and alongside the PR & Comms Executive.

When starting the internship I moved from Glasgow to Stafford and was initially concerned about moving to the area, however meeting all the staff was a great experience; everyone was friendly and the working environment is very enjoyable. Within the first couple of days in the office, I was unleashed upon the ESFA social media accounts. This is a major aspect of the day to day role and the opportunity to create my own content of various forms for the social media was great. I was also able to really hone my writing skills with producing content for the website and media releases, covering a range of topics and styles of writing.

The work is also very dynamic, with opportunities to be able to work on both the competitions and the internationals. This meant I was able to travel to various events around the country including PlayStation Schools Cup Tie of the Round events, international matches and national finals. This gave me a good understanding of how best to balance all the tasks that needed to be done to cover events live while still being able to write match reports and press releases after the events.

I would like to thank the ESFA for the opportunity to work with them this season and all the support they have given me over the year. The chance to work in football and make use of my degree has really helped me find a job going forward.