What is Walking Football?

Here is an introduction to the new sport of walking football, which got its start in Chesterfield, England.

By Groundhopper Guides newsletter reader Mike Firth, Heron Publications.

Chesterfield FC (read our club profile) has hardly set the soccer world alight in the 139 years since the club was formed.

The Derbyshire team has generally spent its days outside the limelight and its biggest achievements have been an FA Cup semi-final appearance and also victory in a now obsolete competition, the Anglo-Scottish Cup.

However, the club – nicknamed the Spireites in honour of twisted steeple on the town’s parish church – is now famous throughout the sporting world for being the birthplace of the world’s fastest growing sport: walking soccer.

It’s an activity no one had heard of until 15 years ago, when the Chief Executive of Chesterfield FC, John Croot, was driving to his office and asked himself: “How can we keep older people out there still enjoying playing football?”

John Croot, the inventor of walking football.

John knew running was always going to be an issue for most older players, so he wondered “what if we do walking?” Then he took out other aspects of the game including sliding tackles and heading and he had soon drawn up rudimentary rules for walking soccer.

After the club’s Community Trust ran its first sessions for Senior Spireites at local sports centres, other clubs and organisations heard of the activity and contacted John to ask for advice on how they could become involved.

“We had Googled ‘walking football’ ourselves and knew there was no information already out there,” John said. “We had also checked with other clubs’ community trusts to see if they ran anything similar and they just laughed, as most people did at that stage.

“As our sessions here in Chesterfield became more popular, we were contacted by Sky Sports who came along to do some filming and they screened a feature about the unusual new sport. Interest grew out of all proportion after Barclays Bank featured it on one of their TV commercials.”

John and his colleagues at Chesterfield FC began to receive enquiries from around the world – and not only about walking soccer.

“Walking sports soon became a category within the world of sport. People have set up walking cricket, walking tennis, walking basketball, walking netball and more,” he says.

“I regularly receive requests for information from places such as Chile, Italy, Australia – all around the world. I’ve just received an invitation to attend a meeting in Bali. The New York Times contacted me because walking basketball had become popular and they tracked the whole thing back to the first team in the US. They asked them where the idea had come from and they were told they had been watching the growth of walking soccer.”

The sport now has more than 100,000 players in the UK alone – some of them former professional footballers – plus dozens of associations around the world. It is now enjoyed by all age groups, men, women and mixed teams. No one laughs any more when it is mentioned!

Chesterfield, appropriately, hosted the International Walking Football Federation Council’s World Championships in May, 2024, when hundreds of players competed across a weekend. They arrived from Australia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, France, Wales and Poland.

Added John: “Wherever walking soccer goes, the most important thing for me is that it provides health and fitness and brings friendships to so many people – and not just on the pitch.”

This plaque commemorates the founding of “walking soccer.”

The birthplace of walking soccer is now marked with a blue heritage plaque outside Chesterfield’s SMH Group Stadium. At its unveiling, messages of goodwill were read out from enthusiasts around the globe.

To find out more about the Senior Spireites Walking Football Club, visit chesterfieldwalkingfootball.co.uk