A new inclusive 3G football pitch has been built in Accrington following a £100,000 grant from Sky Bet.
The pitch, located at the Stanley Sports Hub, has been opened by the Accrington Stanley Community Trust and the Sky Bet EFL Building Foundations Fund.
The 3G pitch will be available for locals to book and will be used by over 40,000 people annually, including Veterans, over 50s and an adult disability team.
The pitch, located at the Stanley Sports Hub, has been opened by the Accrington Stanley Community Trust and the Sky Bet EFL Building Foundations Fund.
The 3G pitch will be available for locals to book and will be used by over 40,000 people annually, including Veterans, over 50s and an adult disability team.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Great, so could you just give me a bit of background about how the pitch came to be
00:10and the funding from Skybet?
00:12Yeah, so there was a funding pot available from Skybet and we identified a need for a
00:18small-sided 3G pitch in our area, Highburn.
00:21We've got a lot of hard-to-reach groups that would directly benefit from using a pitch
00:26like this.
00:28So we went through quite a long process, going through planning permission, all the legal
00:32framework that you have to do, and then once planning permission was sought and the pitch
00:37was ready to be funded, we put the bid in with Skybet and thankfully they've donated
00:42a huge amount of £100,000 and the pitch is ready now to use for the local community.
00:49Yeah, I saw that, Accrington and Stanley were one of only seven clubs that received funding,
00:53is that right?
00:55How was that initial feeling when that bid got accepted?
00:58Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant.
01:00Obviously only one club could get the full maximum £100,000 and we're delighted to be
01:05the first club and showcase what we've done with that money by building this fantastic
01:103G pitch.
01:12So could you just run through the uses of the pitch?
01:15Obviously it's on the main hub of where the players play, but in terms of community groups
01:22and it's mentioned like veterans and over 50s, how will they be able to use it?
01:26Well we have a holiday programme, so obviously you can see last week and going on to end
01:30of August, we've got the younger people taking part in the breakfast clubs, we've got the
01:36holiday programme which starts from 9.30am to 4pm, where they use the multi-use link,
01:40they can play multi-sport games, they've got the football ground down at the back end as
01:44well, but obviously it's a safe area and it's well used because it's all confined space.
01:50We've also got veterans programmes, we've got disability groups, we do walking football
01:56for over 50s, so there'll be a whole different use for the pitch by different various groups
02:03in the local community.
02:06Young kids, veterans, old people.
02:08When the idea for the pitch first came in, was that the plan to try and kind of give
02:14it back to the community as well and try and, as you say, kind of aim at all your fans from
02:19young to old?
02:20Yeah, so what we've done with this facility as a whole, so this used to be a former council
02:25site, council playing fields run down, it needed some investment, so we took the site
02:30on and so far we've spent £4 million, with this being the latest investment with the
02:36new 3G pitch.
02:37But it's vital for the community to have safe spaces and state of the art facilities to
02:42take part, whether you're as young as, we've got people as young as two all the way up
02:47to people in their 90s taking part in community activities.
02:52The whole area, like Martin said earlier on, the whole area with the outside, the abuses
02:55and inside is used by all the groups, day and night.
03:01And I guess on a final note, what was the kind of first impression when you saw the
03:04pitch when it was fully completed?
03:06Yeah, it does come together pretty quickly, so you've got all the building works, they're
03:11excavating all the soils, putting the fencing up, but as soon as they start laying that
03:15carpet, which only took about two days, it really comes to life and it just looks brilliant,
03:21seeing the finished article and we're really happy with it and obviously thankful to Skybet
03:26for choosing us as one of their projects to fund.