Cradley Town FC are now up and running with there fantastic new facilities, after a major investment in the club..
Chat to Cradley Town FC Chairman about the investment in the clubs new Kitchen and all weather pitch, the club where footy star: Jude Bellinghams dad used to play. Its a major investment for the future of the club with more things to come, such as academy football etc.
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00:00 So Trevor, Cradley Football Club, you've been involved as chairman and 28 years
00:06 you've been involved? 28 years. 28 years he says, wearily. Absolutely. Would you believe you're only 32
00:14 in it, you'd age as you being a chairman. Yeah, absolutely, and it certainly takes it out of you, that's for sure.
00:20 But it's all good down here at the minute, yeah? We've got some great news.
00:23 Just fill us in on the investment that's been going on at the club, Trevor.
00:28 Built a brand new kitchen, £84,000 which is amazing. We had some real big help from
00:36 two big funders and then obviously transferring from that we built a small
00:43 eating area along with an AstroTurf which is £220,000 ready for the
00:51 Academy to grow. It looks fantastic, doesn't it? You must be chuffed with it. Yeah,
00:55 absolutely, 100%. It was something I think that certain people thought that we
00:59 couldn't do, we couldn't get investment and because of the work that we do
01:02 within the community, especially here in our local area, everybody's sort of
01:08 backed us. The local people on the estate now using the club, predominantly it's
01:14 run by ladies and to be honest it's probably the most successful time the
01:23 club has had in a number of years. Moving forward it's self-sustainable
01:28 now which means really so long as there's no overspend it should be here
01:33 for a long time. So it's protecting that to make it secure for the future, isn't it?
01:37 Security, yeah, and you know from a club point of view to keep the name of
01:41 Cradytown Football Club alive, it's been here a long time, it's produced in excess of
01:46 10 or 12 people, players that's gone into pro football. Yeah, who's some of the
01:51 players that have come through? John Williams, John Ford, Nico that went down to
01:55 Portsmouth, Dwayne Darby played football here, Mark Bellingham, Jude's dad, played
02:03 here. Was he any good? Very good. Was he? Yeah, he was amazing. He still holds the record down at Stourbridge.
02:09 Predominantly Stourbridge was his number one club, but it was nice to actually have him
02:13 involved here for a short time. Yeah, and you've got a nice shirt there from Jude, haven't you?
02:18 Yeah, absolutely, yeah, that was sent over, yeah, brilliant and signed.
02:21 Yeah, and I mean a football club, yes, obviously it's good for exercise and you
02:27 know and all that, but it's more than that, isn't it? It's a massive social element to a
02:31 club like this, it becomes like a bit like the heart of the community, doesn't it really?
02:34 Yeah, it's sort of done this, we're a bit more of a family, and the people that don't want to be part of that family, they tend to find elsewhere to go.
02:42 Yeah. There's no personal gain at the football club, if there was a personal gain I wouldn't be here.
02:47 Yeah. And having it 28 years, and I know the sort of the grief that it causes for a lot of people,
02:52 parents, families, even when footballers come and go, everybody wants their child to play
02:58 football, but you know you're limited to the numbers that you can play, so you take that as
03:02 part of the build and hopefully the youngsters are our future, and we need to look after our
03:08 youngsters, that's why we've built this Astro Tour. Do you ever stick a pair of boots on still?
03:12 Try to sometimes, but unfortunately no, I'm a little bit disabled now, so I struggle to get around to boots.
03:21 Were you any good back in the day? I'd like to think so, I did playing golf for a couple of local clubs,
03:26 Cradley being mine, which was the reason I came on, get involved. So, yeah.
03:34 So the word is really, some excellent facilities, brand new down here, and if people want to, you
03:41 know, get on board, use it, you know what I mean? Get a bit of money in the kitty.
03:45 Yeah, the future is really fruitful for the club, and you know with the youngsters now coming on
03:50 board, and the seven to eight year olds can actually play on here on a Sunday morning now,
03:55 which has been passed. We're looking for new teams, we've built our own teams over the last 12 to 18
04:04 months, and with the future going forward, we've got an area where we can take them and play on
04:09 grass fields, which is great. So we've got our own base, and we've got this facility for them to
04:13 train at. So it's pretty much all here, it's all here, and we're going to be looking at the near
04:18 future, we're going to be looking at doing an academy, which will be 16 to 18, where they'll
04:24 be classed, schooled, and they'll have the facility here to use. So fingers crossed, everything will
04:30 all go according to plan. Great, so well done Trevor for advancing the club on for that future
04:34 generation. Cheers buddy. Fantastic, thank you.