Portsmouth City Football Club: Case Study

Portsmouth City Football Club, newly promoted to the Premier League, uses SDMS V Football Academy Software for day-to-day administration of its nationally renowned Centre of Excellence

Portsmouth FC bought SDMS V Football Academy Software to support the administration of its Centre of Excellence and Youth Development Programme in October 2000.

Marina Emberson, the Club’s Youth Development Secretary and Administrator, said about the decision to purchase SDMS Academy:

“We already had a well organised system for recording personal and registration details for all our young players. We held basic player records in MS Access. But we wished to make sure that our systems were as effective as possible so when we heard of SDMS and the work it was doing, with many of the leading clubs in the country we decided to have a look. We found that the software was a good match to what we wanted but we also needed the software changed in several ways to match precisely our needs - SDMS was helpful and positive. In the last Football League inspection we were highly commended by the Football League for our Administration of the Youth Development Programme, this was in no small way due to SDMS software.”

The Interview:

Hello Marina, thanks for sparing the time to talk about how you use SDMS at Portsmouth FC.

What would you say have been the major benefits to you in your job using SDMS software?

“Well as an administrator I like to know where everything is and that my records are up to date and accurate. All our standard letters for young players are dealt with and a lot of time is saved just by this. The great benefit is time saving – jobs which used to take 2 days before we used SDMS now take a couple of hours. And of course once the information is entered it can be used many times for different jobs – we use the excellent mail merge facilities of the software for all player-related letters.”

What have been the benefits to say the Club or the Coaching Staff?

“Well I think the most important benefit is having the information to hand so that if someone wants to look at how many matches a young player has played last season, and whether he scored or not the information is available at a key press. Before we would probably have to look through filing cabinets and collate the information. When they know it’s to hand staff are more likely to make use of the information.”

What would you say to other Clubs who see the need for SDMS in their Academy but will not spend the money?

“Money is always an issue in Football Clubs and the price of SDMS software is not cheap. But we have found that the money we spent on SDMS has actually helped us to save money so it was a wise decision.”

Administering Youth Development:

The areas of the software available to Clubs for Centre of Excellence and Academy Management and Administration includes:

Maintaining comprehensive personal Details of all Academy Players in all age groups
Keeping up to date records of Parents and Guardians and Schools to comply with FA Requirements
Complying with FA and Club Registration requirements: the category and type of player, whether they were signed at a distance, applicable contract dates and the names of their previous club with renewal, cancellation and history of registrations
Full match history with player assessments and periodic players’ assessments, profiling and achievements, including skill level and fitness
Full youth profiling that includes medical profiles, person profiling of skills and expertise e.g. fitness, ball skills.

Producing reports to Schools, Parents, Coaches and the Club
Day to day administration utilising Word mail merge and standard Templates
Extensive use of player reports
Full management of all Football Matches, Referee Details, Opponents, the Type of Match – whether Home or Away, Half Time and Full Time Score, Gate and League Position
Extensive reporting to support player management, coaching and development e.g. playing and career history, medical records, injury log, players’ appearances, player assessments, scouting information and much more.

Future Plans and Hopes:

Portsmouth City FC plans to continue using the software given that it has proved its value and justified the cost of initial purchase. The quality of the records held on young players with SDMS is excellent, and so the Club is now considering how it can extend this to a network system.