I've coached sessions with 6 cones and sessions with 60. You need more than you think. Running out of cones mid-session means you're using your feet as markers, which is not a good look.
| Type | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Best all-rounderDisc cones | 90% of grassroots sessions — dribbling drills, grids, boundaries. Stackable, safe to run over, visible from distance. | Can blow around in wind on hard ground. |
| Best for long grassDome cones | Marking goals in SSGs, better visibility on longer/rougher pitches. | Not ideal for close dribbling drills. |
| Best for wide markingTall cones / witches' hats | Corner flags, distance markers, wide pitch boundaries — visible from furthest away. | Least useful for technical/close-control drills. |
Disc cones vs. dome cones vs. tall cones
Disc cones (flat, 23cm diameter): The most versatile. Easy to stack, can be dribbled over without injury risk, and visible from distance. The standard choice for 90% of grassroots sessions.
Dome cones (taller, 10–15cm): Better visibility in long grass. Useful for marking goals in SSGs without proper equipment. Not ideal for close dribbling drills.
Tall cones / witches' hats (30cm+): High visibility for wide pitch marking. Good for corner flags and distance markers. Less useful for technical drills.
Disc cones: 50-pack disc cones* · 50 multicolour disc cones* · 20-pack disc cones*
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How many do you need?
Minimum viable kit: 20 disc cones. Comfortable session kit: 40–50. Full setup for complex sessions with multiple simultaneous drills: 60+.
Buy the 50-pack at minimum. Single packs of 10 or 12 look economical but you'll wish you'd bought more.
Colours
Multiple colours matter for drills that use colour cues (colour gates, colour touch, traffic lights). A set of 4 colours × 10 cones is more useful than 40 cones of one colour. If buying a single colour, yellow or orange offers the best visibility on grass.
Multi-colour cone sets: 40-cone multi-colour set* · 50-cone 4-colour set*
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Cone bags
A cone carry bag or mesh sack is not optional. Loose cones in a kit bag are a perpetual problem. Buy a bag that clips to your kit bag or attaches to a goal post.
Cone carry bags: Mesh cone bag* · Equipment storage bag*
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The flat marker alternative
Coloured flat markers (rubber squares or circles, 10–15cm) are an underrated alternative to cones for close-control drills. Players can dribble over them without knocking them, and they define a smaller space more precisely than a disc cone. Worth having 20 in your kit bag alongside your disc cones.
Flat markers: Flat rubber training markers* · Spot markers 20-pack*
* As an Amazon Associate, SimpleDrills earns from qualifying purchases. Prices and availability correct at time of writing.
How to judge cone quality before you buy
Cheap cones fail in predictable ways, and none of them are about the plastic snapping — grassroots cones almost never break. What actually goes wrong: the base flexes so much the cone won't sit flat and blows over in any wind; the colour fades to a dull grey within a season of sun exposure, making colour-cue drills useless; and the stack height is too tall or too short for the packaging claims, meaning a "50-pack" that photographs as a neat stack barely reaches your knee in reality. None of this shows up in a product photo, so the two things worth actually checking are weight (a cone with some heft in the base resists wind far better than a featherweight one) and whether the listing states a base diameter — cones without a stated diameter are usually the flimsier end of the market.
Cone drills you can run with just 10-20 cones
You don't need 50 cones to run a genuinely useful session — plenty of core grassroots drills work with a small kit:
- Gates passing: 8 cones set up as 4 gates (pairs 1-2 yards apart), players pass through different gates on the coach's call. Builds passing accuracy and vision with minimal setup.
- Grid dribbling: 4 cones marking a 10x10 yard square, players dribble inside under time or defender pressure. Scales from 1 player to 6+ inside the same grid.
- Colour reaction: lay 4 different-coloured cones in a scatter, call a colour, players sprint to touch it. Needs only 4-8 cones and works from U7 upward.
- Slalom dribbling: a line of 6-8 cones spaced a yard apart for close-control dribbling — the single most common warm-up setup in grassroots football.
See our full warm-up drill library and dribbling drills for step-by-step versions of these and dozens more, all built around a standard cone kit.
Storage and lifespan
The biggest lifespan killer for cones isn't use, it's UV exposure and heat — cones left in a hot car boot over a full summer come out noticeably more brittle than ones stored indoors, and cracked cones are a genuine trip hazard rather than just a cosmetic issue. Keep cones out of direct sun where the kit bag lives, and do a quick visual check for cracking at the base every few months, particularly after a hot spell. A cone bag (see above) also helps indirectly — cones stored loose in a general kit bag get crushed under boots and other kit far more than ones kept together in their own bag.