BEING in charge of one of the area's top junior football league is a difficult task making sure things running smoothly.

Warren Barlow, chairman of the Bolton, Bury and District Football League talks about the issues affecting grassroots sport and football.

JANUARY is traditionally a quiet month for football teams as many games are called off due to waterlogged or frozen pitches and this January has been no exception with more focus in the grassroots football community on summer football, 3G and indoor games such as futsal.

We can influence two of those and as stated previously we have plans to do so with a summer league and work is also underway to pull together the various futsal providers locally in order that we can make a futsal league a reality.

One area which is harder to influence is 3G provision, but that doesn't stop us trying.

Anybody who visits Bolton Wanderers Academy at Lostock will see the community 3G which was authorised for build due to Bolton Wanderers Community Trust and the BBDFL working together.

There are other plans for sports expansion in the borough and we will offer our support to any organisation, including clubs and schools to assist in developing better facilities for the area.

It matters not if the facility is for football as I would like to see all sports providers working together to improve the infrastructure for all.

A couple of areas which we do lack is in the area of disabled football in the BBDFL, but there is a great club called AFC Masters which I ask people to check out as they are doing great things in the area.

The other is girls football and one of the largest clubs in the region Academy Juniors are worth looking at also as they are based locally and offer lots of opportunities for girls.

n Warren will be back next week with his column talking about the league.

If you want to see more about him you can follow @bbdfl on twitter.