ESF Festival of Football

We booked the Skegness tournament for our U9s . Overall the team had a good weekend bonding around the resort and at the football tournament. However we felt disappointed in the fact Im the lack of football we were scheduled to play over the weekend. There was a minimum of 7 games over the Saturday and Sunday , games were 14 minutes long ( 7 minute halves ) however for any injuries, balls out of play ( in the bushes ) or if the referees spoke to anyone , the clock wasnt stopped so we felt it was more like a 5 minute half . We played on 5 a side sized pitches when there were 2 unused 7s pitches which we felt was odd . In general we felt it wasnt a tournament set up for football but more of a get them along , kick a ball a bit and get them back to the site to spend Another disappointment was the fact the ESF photographer caught zero action shots of our players , whilst referees were telling us not to take photos or film . Bizarrely they pictured a sibling of a player with an ice cream cone instead of photographing the game itself . I wouldnt recommend a trip with ESF if your a team wanting to go and play football over the weekend.
May 17th, 2022

To start, id like to say the weekend as a whole was a wonderful experience for our U8s and they had a wonderful time. However there was a poor incident during a game in the tournament which was never handled and completely dismissed by ESF staff, on making a complaint they also were rude and dismissed it, like they didnt want it to exist. The incident was in a game, ESF bang on profusely about fair play, and respect and also use Lanyards to ensure only two coaches are on the technical areas. In Our last game, they ended up with 4 coaches, and another full team. Not one ESF representative did anything about it. Following that when the other team scored a goal to put them into a lead and with time remaining a Parent pushed past one of our elderly parents jumped over the respect lines and picked a boy up celebrating the goal. it upset my lads greatly. I didnt care for the result but more the treatment my boys were exposed too. On victory the other team who obviously knew each other ran on the pitch with no respect along with some of there parents. We were approached by two teams after who felt our treatment was disgusting (In there words). So i reported the incident, i was calm. I was told just to fill in a form and when i handed it in, i did say i was a little disappointed and it probably made be doubt whether i would come again. My reply by an ESF staff member was 'Ok bye bye' Later on i had a few statements from parents and on that i went back and asked if i can add to the statement. ESF staff, then denied all knowledge of the incident and claimed none of there officials witnessed it (Strange considering i was talking to one official who not only knew the parent who ran accross the pitch by name, but also said to me he had asked him to get off the pitch). Not leave the grounds which is under there Code of Conduct The ref who was young although denying it was under pressure and influenced throughout the game, i felt sorry for him but again ESF staff did nothing.. They just take a few points off at the end!!!! So overall, i am disapointed. If its about Fair play its amazing that they didnt follow there own code of conduct and were so happy just to disregard it. I would like to think that not all ESF tournaments are run this way!!!
Mar 23rd, 2020

Superb experience for the players and parents alike.
Mar 16th, 2018

Our team has just returned from ESF 2017 and we've already got our name down for ESF 2018. The kids had an absolutely fantastic time and they've really bonded as a team. The time away at Butlins has also given us parents some time to get to know each other better. The football itself is very professionally organised and Butlins is the perfect venue for us to enjoy the downtime when we weren't playing. If anyone is planning on going on tour with their team then ESF is the place to go 100%.
Jan 6th, 2018

Disappointed!. They made the paying customers litter pick and be responsible for cleaning the pitches.Very few bins. Parents of the players where expected to be linesmen in every game despite being paying customers. They didn't supply the linesmens flags. We had to use our own bibs as a flag. They would award the team with the best fair play points the win if a draw. This rule sounded good, but the officials didn't do the scoring, the opposition did. We just awarded the opposition 100/100 just for good Sportsmenship or atleast a high score. The scores should have been done by the refs so it was fair. We played 4 games on Saturday and 2 games on Sunday. Every team was very well behaved Except for a team called Carshalton Athletic. Some of the other teams had warned us about Carshalton's behaviour during the first day. When we played them, they soon lived up to their reputation. They weren't anything special, sort of mid table team in the tournament. We found ourselves leading quite early on and were on top of things. We didn't need to win the game as we were already out of the running from the 1st day. After going 1 nil Up. Carshalton Athletic started to get annoyed. We have a boy on our team who has long hair and one of the Carshalton parents referred to him as "He, she or whatever it is". I couldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe it was a kids tournament which was supposed to be fun. Some of the players were being kicked off the ball when we were winning. One particular player was really dirty. Constantly kicking out at players. The ref had to have a word with him on several occasions. Turns out this nasty kid was the child of the vile mum throwing the insults and other teams kids. Before the end of the first half this kid was taken off because of his behaviour and not brought back on. We ended up drawing the game 1 all. All the parents of our team couldn't believe the behaviour of Carshalton players. The parents of our team were quite thankful the game was over and were quite upset about what the other parents were saying about our kids. About an hour later we could hear a lot of commotion coming from one of the other pitches. Lots of shouting and aggression. Surprise surprise Carshalton Athletic are playing and they were losing again. Their behaviour again was appalling and was causing a lot of unwanted attention. There were fights happening in the game including the vile kid causing all the trouble in our game. Carshalton were awarded a penalty and made it 1 all. The match had to be abandoned due to fighting and the team not controlling their players. The match would have to be decided on fair play points awarded to the two teams so far throughout the tournament. To our shock Carshalton was awarded the win because it turned out all the teams awarded everyone 100/100 but Carshalton was awarding low marks to their opposition.The team they were playing was LSS (London Soccer Stars) a team we had played and lost to the day before with absolutely no issues whatsoever. That poor team had been robbed of runners up space due to this result. The Sunday evening was the presentation. LSS felt so let down by ESF, they decided not to attend. They felt their whole tournement and holiday was tarnished by the officials and Carshalton Athletic and a few of the other teams including us agree with them. It was such a shame. The hole presentation was a fix. Guess who won player of the tournement??? You guessed it. The vile player with the vile parents from Carshalton Athletic. He won the award for exceptional performances throughout the whole tournament. How can they award best player to a player whos actions cause the final game being abandoned and had to go off for bad behavior in our game too? Are they saying the winners who won every game didn't have a better player than him when he didn't finish last two games? Trophies had 2020 engraved on them but covered it over with a wonky sticker. The whole site stunk of drugs all weekend. Won't attend again. A
Sep 22nd, 2021