Levelling the playing field: Researchers trial a new approach to youth football development 

Researchers at York St John University are working with the Junior Premier League (JPL) to explore how biological maturity influences youth sport development. As part of this, academics have held a ‘Bio-Banding Discovery Day’ in collaboration with the JPL, to bring together young players, coaches, and parents to trial bio-banding in a competitive setting. 

Bio-banding is an approach that groups young athletes based on their biological maturity rather than their age. This helps address the physical disparities often seen in youth sport, where early developers can have an advantage over those who grow and experience puberty later.  

Bio-banding has previously been researched in male football, but this work is taking a more holistic approach. This time, the York St John team are examining not just physical but also technical, tactical, and psychosocial aspects of player development. 

Measuring maturity and performance

Around 150 players from 12 Junior Premier League teams were welcomed to York St John Sports Campus on Haxby Road in York. Players from different age groups (U13s, U14s, and U15s) were initially grouped by age before having their heights and weights measured to estimate their biological maturity. 

For the afternoon, players were re-grouped into bio-banded teams, mixing players from different age groups but with similar physical maturity levels. Each participant wore playmaker devices on their feet, allowing researchers to track their movements, speeds, and distances covered during matches. Matches were observed by talent recruitment experts and players completed questionnaires on how they felt about the discovery day. 

For many young players, this was their first experience with bio-banding. It provided an opportunity to see how different match formats affected their confidence, skill execution, and tactical decision-making. Coaches and parents were also a key part of the event, sharing valuable feedback on how bio-banding could shape youth development. 

Steve Nichol, Youth Coach FC Halifax Town said: “I think it could be beneficial for players in various ways. One, looking at how we select and recruit players and two, how we support their development moving forwards as players as well. 

“Obviously when you when you move to higher levels of football, you want good rationale behind decisions that you're making. When you're making decisions on such young people as well.” 

Dan Wilson, Head of Youth at York City FC said: “For the young players in terms of their development, a young player who might be struggling in their age group due to lower maturation. Actually, when they drop an age group, it might give them a major confidence boost they might go from really scrambling to stay in the game and scrambling to cope to all of a sudden being one of the best players. The only thing that changed is being against kids of similar size, similar maturation. It opens up different technical, tactical considerations for those kids as well.” 

Mike, a parent of a York City U15 player, said: "We see a huge disparity in size and shape with our kids at 13, 14, 15. Anything that gives us better insight into that is a fantastic initiative. We can’t do enough for our kids, we can't support them enough." 

Dr Jamie Salter, Senior Lecturer in Sport Science and Injury said: "The Bio-Banding Discovery Day at YSJ was a great success. It allowed players to express themselves in new ways and demonstrated the potential of bio-banding to enhance talent development and reduce injury risk.  

"We hope to see bio-banding reduce the bias towards early developers and provide fairer opportunities in sport and look forward to applying this concept to different sports and populations in the coming months."  

App development

The researchers hope to encourage more youth sports teams to measure the biological maturity of players so that talented players who reach puberty later than peers don’t get left behind in a ‘survival of the fittest’ environment. As part of this, Dr Salter and the team are working on a new app, MaturityMonitor, which allows coaches, parents, and teachers to easily estimate a player's physical maturity. It’s hoped it could make bio-banding more accessible at both grassroots and elite levels. 

The tool is being developed with academics from York St John’s Computer Science department and is currently available on the Apple Store, though still in beta testing. The University’s Interdisciplinary sports performance and injury research (InSPIRe) research group is continuing to refine the MaturityMonitor app ahead of a full release later this year.  

The event was a pilot study, with the research team now analysing their data to report back to the JPL. Plans are already in place for a similar event focusing on female players in the coming months, as researchers investigate whether the same trends apply in girls’ football as well as other sports 

More about studying a sports course at York St John University Sport 

More about the InSPIRe research group Interdisciplinary sports performance and injury

Watch the Discovery Day video