U12s JPL Trials
Competitive MJPL football. Serious coaching, positive environment, clear pathway.
U12s JPL
Bosworth Academy, Desford • Mondays
JPL fixtures are played against academy and academy-standard sides most Saturdays. A player who enjoys that — being stretched, sometimes being second best, and coming back the following week — will get more from this than one who is used to winning comfortably.
Training is once a week and it is a coaching session, not a practice match. The players who move fastest here are the ones who want to be told what to work on, and who then go and work on it between Mondays.
We pick on attitude, application and ability, in that order. How a child listens, takes a correction and behaves when the session is not going their way tells us more about where they will be in two seasons than what they can do with the ball today.
Training is one evening a week in Leicestershire — Mondays, 7:00pm – 8:30pm. Fixtures are the bigger commitment: JPL covers the Midlands region of a national league, so Saturdays involve travel. Worth knowing before you trial rather than after.
If that sounds like your child, we'd love to see them at trials.
Every session is planned against a curriculum rather than made up on the night, and every coach is paid to be there and qualified to UEFA B or C. That is a large part of why squad fees are higher than a grassroots club's, and we would rather say so than pretend the difference is nothing.
The JPL is the largest national youth football league in England and we play in its Midlands region. Star Soccer Academy is the only club in Leicestershire playing exclusively in the MJPL and JPL rather than local Sunday leagues, so the standard your child trains at is the standard they play at on a Saturday.
Players move between our academy centres and these squads in both directions, and we can register any number of players up an age group — we often promote a player to sample playing up where we think it will stretch them. What we do not do is promise where it leads. No club can honestly tell you a place here ends in a professional academy.
Coaches are paid for match days as well as training, so the person on the touchline on Saturday is the one who coached your child on Monday. Losses get coached rather than shouted at. And if a player is not selected we tell you, and tell you why, instead of leaving you to work it out from silence.
Your child trains with the squad they are trialling for, in a normal session. Nothing is assessed on paper — the coaches are watching how they play, how they listen, and how they respond when it does not go their way.
A second session with the same squad, then a decision. We tell you either way at the end of it. If we need longer to be fair to a player, we extend the trial rather than guess.
✓ No trial fee • ✓ No sign-up pressure • ✓ Two sessions to show us what you've got
Founder & Head Coach, Star Soccer Academy
“I don't want to produce players who all play the same way. I want to give them the technical ability, confidence and understanding to make their own decisions when the game puts a problem in front of them.”
U12s for the 2026/27 season means players born 1 Sept 2014 – 31 Aug 2015. That is the standard FA age banding, run from 31 August. If your child sits close to the boundary, send the date of birth and we will tell you which squad they belong in.
Training is on Mondays. All positions considered.
Where
Bosworth Academy, Desford
When
Mondays, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Trial
2-week trial
Positions
All positions
U12s JPL is a trial route, not an open session. Send us your child's details and a coach will be in touch about trialling — there is nothing to turn up to until we have spoken.
