Laying the foundations for sport participation

This summer the Football Foundation celebrated its 15-year Anniversary. Our primary objective since 2000 has been to use money from our Funding Partners, the Premier League, The FA and the government, through Sport England, to build new or refurbish local sports facilities up and down the country.
    
In the decade-and-a-half since the charity was conceived, schools have benefited directly from the Foundation’s investment, with floodlit third generation (3G) artificial grass pitches (AGPs) and modern changing rooms becoming the catalyst for significant increases in participation and enthusiasm for sport within the academic sector.
    
Football Foundation facilities at schools contribute richly to a pupil’s career in academia by supporting the practicalities of gaining sports science, coaching, refereeing and other qualifications. The skills learned while playing football on a 3G pitch – team work and the value of practice and preparation, for example – can help pupils academically when transferred to the classroom.
    
However, although thousands of pupils, teachers, parents and local communities now have access to high-quality 3G AGPs or changing pavilions at their school, the availability of facilities – which are the proven driver of getting more people to play sport – is still too limited.

Grassroots level
There is broad acknowledgment throughout our nation’s game that a greater inventory of state-of-the-art football facilities are required at the grassroots level, and the Football Foundation is continuing to work hard to address this dearth by awarding grants through the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund.

Since 2000, the Foundation has awarded around 13,000 grants worth more than £530m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £740m – this means that over £1.3bn has been invested into the grassroots game.

That money is targeted into the areas of greatest need and where it will have the most impact, a model that is having truly stunning results.

Last year the Foundation recorded a 25.8 per cent increase in multi-sport participation at sites it has helped fund, including facilities at schools, and an 11 per cent average increase in football participation. Given that the UK has amongst the worst levels of obesity in Western Europe – the latest Health Survey for England data found that more than one in 10 children under-10 in England are obese – those numbers are particularly encouraging.
    
Of course these impressive figures are not here-today-gone-tomorrow, they are sustainable over the long-term because the Foundation works with the network of County FAs to make sure facilities have robust Football Development Plans (FDP).
    
FDPs map out, over a five-year period, how a facility can be used to its maximum. It makes sure that a school’s 3G pitch is a community hub with weekly usage for pupils, teachers and also for the wider community. Typically, one of the Foundation’s 3G pitches will be used for approximately 90 hours-a-week even during the winter months. Our 3Gs are all floodlit as standard and do not waterlog after periods of heavy rain, so play does not have to stop at the end of the school day in the middle of November, for example.

Gross Domestic Product
In addition to improving the country’s sports facilities, and in doing so regenerating the surrounding areas and making a difference to the health of the people that use them, the Foundation is also playing its part in contributing to the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
    
Research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that for every pound invested by the Foundation, £7.73 was generated for the UK’s economy. That return underlines what incredible value the Foundation delivers for the tax payer, all the more remarkable when compared to other countries where all the costs of improving school sports facilities have to come from the public purse.
    
Facilities that the Foundation delivers can also give youngsters the opportunity to gain a place in a professional club’s youth set-up. Take the Twickenham Academy, which received a £617,941 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund back in 2008 to build a floodlit 3G AGP and changing rooms.
    
The facility is used by 1,150 (172 female and 918 male) grassroots footballers every week, including players from eight local FA-affiliated grassroots clubs, community groups, small-sided leagues and rugby clubs. Among those players are Alice Fraser (AFC Wimbledon Ladies & Girls), Lauren James (Arsenal Ladies), Aston Nunn (Fulham FC) and Luke Plange (Arsenal FC) who have all been identified as potential stars of tomorrow.
    
The school also works with Brentford FC Community Sports Trust (CST) who use the pitch to host weekly training sessions and matches as part of their training programmes, in which a weekly soccer school is also run.

Maltby Academy
The west London-based Academy was recently visited by talkSPORT presenter Georgie Bingham and former Wimbledon and Liverpool defender John Scales as part of the Football Foundation’s 15-year Anniversary celebrations. Pupils took part in a Q&A session, where John said: “It is vital for the future of our national game that grassroots players, just like these pupils at Twickenham Academy, have access to high-quality 3G playing surfaces.”
    
That sentiment was echoed by former Minister for Sport and current Football Foundation trustee Richard Caborn who said: “It is essential that we continue to invest into grassroots facilities to ensure that participation is increased, players’ technical skills are improved and links with the professional game are strengthened.’’
    
Caborn was speaking at the opening of Maltby Academy in South Yorkshire where earlier this summer he opened the school’s new floodlit 3G AGP, which will be used not just by teachers and pupils but the wider community. The project was made possible thanks to a £338,295 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund.
    
Local FA Charter Standard grassroots clubs, Maltby JFC and Maltby Miners Welfare JFC will all call the new facility home. Thanks to a FDP, which was drawn up with consultation from the Sheffield and Hallamshire FA, an additional 15 teams at two local clubs will be created because of the new facility and the site will become a hub for coach education courses. Rotherham United Community Sport Trust will also play a vital role in ensuring the wider community benefits, running coaching sessions, holiday soccer schools and sport inclusion projects.

School engagement
Manchester City star Bacary Sagna was on hand to help bring a school closer to its local club, as Connell Sixth Form College opened a new multi‑use game areas close to the Etihad Stadium. The college received funding from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund to build a multi‑use football pitch and changing facility and the former Arsenal right-back said: ‘‘We can engage with students on the pitch not only to help them maintain a healthy lifestyle but build confidence in other life skills.’’
    
The college’s relationship with City means scholars from the club’s academy will conduct their studies there while City in the Community, the club’s outreach programme, will deliver all practical sessions at the facility.  
    
The Blandford School in Dorset was lucky enough to have a big-name visitor in the form of former Southampton and England striker James Beattie. The Football Foundation Ambassador was met by all 700 of the school’s pupils on the pitch which was unveiled earlier in 2015, with the facility receiving a £350,000 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund to be built.

The school is another example of a 3G pitch based at the heart of a school’s community. The Dorset facility accommodates not only all 700 of the school’s pupils but local grassroots clubs, Blandford Youth Football Club, Blandford United, AFC Blandford, Stourpaine FC, and Wimborne Town Football Club. AFC Bournemouth’s Community Trust, Arsenal’s Soccer Schools and Dorset County FA also base sessions at the facility.
    
Beattie discussed the importance of a grassroots game with students and welcomed questions on his football career. He said: “You know that when the Football Foundation, with the help of the Dorset FA in this case, builds a facility it is doing so in an area that needs it most.”

Moving forward
More is still to be done, though. World Cup winners Germany can boast more than 3,735 3G pitches whereas England has just over 600, 530 of which were delivered by the Foundation. That gap needs to be bridged not only to help the professional end of the game but so that the next generation grow up healthy and active.

The formula is simple: build more quality facilities and more people will get involved in sport. It is no surprise that children shy away from taking part in football when they often have no option but to get changed in cold, damp changing rooms, or can’t even play the game because their school pitches have become waterlogged.
    
Schools and students can however look to the future with optimism, safe in the knowledge that the Football Foundation is building on the work of the last 15 years. The investment we are continuing to make into the lowest levels of the game strengthens our nation’s favourite sport because a strong base at the bottom of the football pyramid strengthens the elite level at the top and everything in-between.

Further information
www.footballfoundation.org.uk