Grassroots sports groups welcome facility funding

Grassroots sports groups across the West Midlands have welcomed government funding to help improve their facilities.

Last year, 991 projects across the UK received money through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme to improve things like floodlights, goalposts and all-weather pitches.

A new round of funding has now opened and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has invited community organisations to apply for a share of an £85m grant.

For football groups in Herefordshire and Warwickshire, the funds they were previously awarded had a massive impact on the children they support.

In total, clubs in Coventry and Warwickshire received more than £310,000 to upgrade their facilities.

The funding ranged from just under £250,000 for new changing rooms at Racing Club Warwick, to just over £1,000 for Upper Lighthorne Football Club for new goalposts.

Nuneaton-based Camp Hill Educational Sports and Social, better known as Chess FC, was awarded £6,017 to buy portable floodlights for their training pitches at Hill Top Playing Fields in Arley.

Club chairperson Ian Andrew said it meant their eight junior teams, including an under-15 girls side, could train anywhere on the surface at night and in all weathers.

He told the BBC: "They love coming along in the evening. It's pitch black and they've got the chance to run around and feel like professional footballers playing under lights."

Racing Club Warwick received just under £250,000 to build new changing rooms at their Townsend Meadow ground.

Club chairman Gary Vella said: "When you've got a 3G pitch and you've got game after game, particularly for juniors, you need changing facilities. The women's game, disability football, all need their own changing areas, so this will help push us on."

Nearly £60,000 was given to 16 clubs across Herefordshire and Worcestershire and the DCMS said the money was aimed at giving families affordable ways to stay healthy.

David Pembridge, from Wessington Juniors FC in Hereford, said: "Throughout Herefordshire there's a massive shortage of indoor facilities.

"It's very costly so any time that you're hiring indoor facilities, which could be anything from £50 an hour, when you've got 11 teams, that quickly racks up to thousands and thousands which makes it less affordable for parents."

The group was awarded a grant to provide portable floodlights

He added: "Every winter since we have been able to continue training outside in almost all weathers, when the clocks change it doesn't mean football stops it means that we can carry on and the children still get their weekly fix of football."

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: "This is sport delivering for the nation. Every pound we invest in grassroots facilities is a pound that takes pressure off our NHS, supports mental and physical health, and opens doors for new community members to benefit from sport - like women and girls who've been shut out for too long."

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