Rushall Village Football Club started just over a year ago and have four boys teams, a girls team and a ladies team.
They're not-for-profit and have been using a local cricket club to play their home games but have now leased their own pitch and are aiming to have it game-ready in time for the new season.
They're not-for-profit and have been using a local cricket club to play their home games but have now leased their own pitch and are aiming to have it game-ready in time for the new season.
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NewsTranscript
00:00My name is Mark Adams. I'm 39 and I'm from Warsaw. I'm the chairman of Rushall Village Football Club,
00:07which is a club within the local area. Rushall Village Football Club started just over a year
00:13ago. It was our first time being affiliated to MFA. We affiliated with six teams, originally six
00:22which are three, four boys teams, a girls team and a ladies team as well. We're a not-for-profit
00:31club and our aim, our ethos is to make sure that parents and coaches alike remove that financial
00:41instability away from them. So coaches no longer have to deal with money, parents only have to pay
00:47a small amount of money into the club and in return they get free kits, they get extra training
00:53and they get to enjoy the facilities that we've got and will have in the future.
00:58In our first year, so this is coming up to our second year in football now, but during our first
01:04year we had a brand new under-9s team that went on to win their first tournament within just a
01:11couple of weeks of forming, which was formed properly through development rather than just
01:16trying to get the best players in. We also had our under-13s team that also won the same tournament
01:23which is remarkably well, remarkably good really considering that we had new players coming in and
01:30older players leaving us. We've also managed to attract two more teams that have come from other
01:37clubs because of the way that the club was set up and what they thought of the future of the club as
01:43well. So we originally set up with two teams which is the under-13s and under-9s and we found
01:52a ground up in Rushall which was Rushall Cricket Club that was happy enough to host us and that's
01:59where we started our season. However as we started to grow we had five more teams, four more teams
02:06come into the club and it meant that we are sort of running out of space and needing to find some
02:14extra space to continue to build really and to be able to open up the opportunities for development
02:20for local children to just enjoy what we've got and what we've got going on really. So we looked
02:27around for more space, more grounds, anywhere that we could try and grow. We did come across
02:34this area and it was actually recommended to us by a local councillor. So we looked at the
02:40application, it was perfect for what we wanted in terms of size and the future of the club,
02:46what we've got set for the next five years and so we came down and had a look at the ground.
02:53Looking into it a little bit further, such as the area as well, it was really important to make sure
03:00that we can give children, the local children, opportunities that we wouldn't originally have.
03:05So this area in particular, I think it's ranked 3,800 in one of the most deprived areas
03:13in the UK. So for us it's really important that those children that don't have the access to
03:19sporting activities or healthy living, it's really important that we can give them
03:26those options and especially with our financial support programme where we're allowing families
03:32who can't really afford the subscription payments to just apply and get reduction so they can
03:38actually enjoy football without the worry of financial stability really. Now we've officially
03:44got the ground, our plan for the rest of the season now is to just wipe it back to a basic
03:51slate. I mean it is in dire need of repair and again just back to a playing state. So the aim is
03:58up until the next season now we'll just get to a playing state on the pitch with further developments
04:04over time, getting toilets in, getting the respect barriers around the pitch to separate the spectator
04:10areas, to replace the stand and the roof on the stand, to make sure that there's enough facilities
04:16here that people that need them will get them when they come. And then within our five-year plan
04:22the idea is that we'll try and get 3G onto here which will cost between £850,000 to £1 million
04:29but over those five years we've got plenty of time to fundraise the money that we need
04:35to try and do that and that opens up a whole host of other activities for the local
04:42children, school and organisations to use. This is really, really important to me because I've
04:48been in children's football for the last 10 years now being both an amateur and a professional sort
04:54of setting and since I joined football, since I got involved in the coaching side of football
05:02I saw how much joy that it can bring to children. It also helps mentally, so mental health is
05:07incredibly important nowadays both for coaches such as myself, the other people that we've got
05:14who volunteer as well as the children, it's really, really important and I saw the benefits of it
05:19so just trying to ramp up what we can do in the local community to help out, that's
05:25really what we're aiming for so when we set up the club it was for the fact
05:31that we want to help more children get involved in football and for the right reasons so it's
05:35not just for business purposes, not to line our pockets, we are completely not for profit, we don't
05:41take a penny of the children's money and they get everything back out of it so when this ground
05:46comes up, for me personally, it was a hooray moment so we can get more children involved
05:54in the sport and at the end of the day it's everyone's club, it's not my club, it's not
06:01the other coaches club, it's everyone's club and we just want to be a family club, make sure that
06:07everyone gets an opportunity at football regardless of age, sex or financial situation really.