Fairford and Lechlade Youth Football Club (FLY FC) are launching an initiative to improve the club’s playing facilities with their ‘Put it on the Pitch Campaign’.

Club chairman Adam Sloman said “Anyone who has played at Horcott over the years will know that we don’t have the best pitches and it’s apparent we need to invest in the grass for the children to really get the best from their time with Club.”

FLY FC has almost 200 boys and girls registered with them from the age of 5 up and is currently applying to regain its Chartered Standard Status. “I moved to Fairford four years ago and was struck by the huge potential the Club has. I was voted in as Chairman in May and all of us on the committee and the coaches want to do all we can to improve the facilities not just for the kids who train and play with us, but for the whole community.”

With this goal in mind, the Club will soon be launching a range of fund-raising initiatives and activities.

“If you look at the whole area of Horcott, there are big patches with little or no grass and when the summer comes it struggles even more” says Alan Stratford, the Club Development Officer.

The first phase of the improvement plan is to take 50% of the pitches at Horcott and add additional top-soil, before scarifying and reseeding the pitches. The second phase will see the other half of the pitches given the same treatment.

“We need around £11,000 to fund the first phase of work, so clearly we need to do some fund-raising. We have a commitment to groups that use the area for camping around RIAT and we don’t want to let them down” says Adam “so we’ll be looking to do the work in late July, early August before the 2019-2020 season kicks off.”

Further down the line the Club hopes to improve the facilities at its Club house and is hopeful of being able to install an artificial playing surface alongside the existing pitches.

“We want the Youth Football Club to be a genuine asset to the local community” says Adam. “Our Clubhouse could provide an additional venue space in Fairford, while an all-weather pitch would obviously massively improve our ability to offer football to young people during the winter months, it could also be of great benefit to Fairford Primary, Farmors School, the Youth Rugby Club, anyone. It’s our hope that we can create something here that not only gives kids a brilliant start to their footballing journey, but also be something that the whole of Fairford can be proud of.”

The Club has also said that any offers of sponsorship or donations to the Club would be warmly welcomed. “We need volunteers to help us” says Adam. “Anyone interested is welcome to get in touch – you can reach us via email on fairfordandlechladeyfc@outlook.com.”