The big area of expansion for us in our youth teams has been our increase in teams in the younger age groups. Though the club has a long-established junior section that offers weekly football sessions for children from the age of 4, for many years we didn't progress those kids onto competitive football until they hit the point of being U9s. It became clear though that that there was strong appetite for getting children started with playing in matches earlier - and after a series of successful pilots, we now have an established pathway that allows kids in our junior section who are ready for competitive football to start playing in a team from U7.

We are proud to say that there are many young people who have completed the whole journey with Radcliffe Olympic, starting with us in our junior section and playing for the club all the way from the youth teams up to U18.

The end of their U18s season is of course when young people complete their youth football journey, and at that point our players' lives tend to go in a variety of different directions - with some of course going off to different parts of the country to study at university. In 2025 however we did launch an U23s team as part of the club’s adult section. This new initiative has enabled some of our young players to continue playing for the club following the end of their U18s season, and aims to provide a pathway for them potentially being able to play for our main adult teams.