Grant will be put to good use by junior football club in Hebden Bridge

The club, which is run entirely by volunteers, provides football activities for children aged five to 18.

Ben Harrop, from the club, said: ”Hebden Bridge Saints JAFC are really pleased to have received a pitch preparation grant from the Football Foundation. We are a community club run entirely by volunteers who aim to provide fun football activities for children of all ages from 5 to 18. We have faced some real challenges this year with the flood and COVID-19 lockdown but are keen to get children active and involved in the game they love again in a safe way over the coming weeks and months.

“Having good quality playing fields is key to us being able to run our activities for children. In the Upper Calder Valley our facilities are poor compared to some of the other areas we visit when playing matches. The club has been working for several years to keep and improve local playing fields for the children in the club and for the local community. Many people probably don’t realise that the club maintains the playing fields at Brearley and Scout Road in Mytholmroyd and the whole community benefits from this.

“The flood at the start of this year had a massive impact on our facilities and we were really helped by the fire service and VBA who volunteered to help us get our pitch storage facilities cleared and cleaned. We are really grateful to them for this.

“Thanks to this grant and money raised by the community at a fundraising Race Night earlier in the year, as well as the ongoing fundraising activities of parents and volunteers, we can now invest more in improving the pitches that we use and help repair damage caused by the flood.

“At Brearley Fields we are hoping Calderdale Council will support us in extending the pitches we currently have, and the pitch preparation funding will help with mowing and preparing more of the playing field area that has been left unmaintained since the flood in 2015.

“The club commissioned a report via the FA from experts at the Institute of Groundsmen for Brearley Fields and this highlighted that with some additional investment and modern pitch maintenance techniques, these playing fields can be made much more resilient to flooding in future. We are also working with Burnley Road School to improve the school field there which was affected by flooding. We also want to use some of the additional funding we have raised to invest in improving the playing area at Scout Road and the other pitches that we use.

“We know that families and children will really benefit from having good quality outdoor recreation spaces for physical and social activity, and this is even more important at the present time with schools mostly closed and children being schooled at home. This presents real challenges for undertaking as much physical education and social interaction as they would at school. We are hoping that the football activities our amazing volunteers are looking to arrange over the coming weeks will really help the kids. The support of the Football Foundation towards having good quality pitches is also key part of us being able to do this.”