Dalbeattie Star Football Club has been given an award from The Scottish Football Partnership to assist with the cost of upgrading Islecroft Stadium to meet with the Scottish FA’s National club licensing guidelines. Star Chairman Clark Lamont said, “I would like to convey a big thank you from everyone at our club to The Scottish Football Partnership for the award granted by them towards the funding of improvements to the facilities at Islecroft. The club is at present actively pursuing its National club licence in order to continue membership of The Scottish Football Association and this funding award has enhanced our progress towards meeting the club licencing criteria. Improvements carried out to date comprise of new turnstiles, toilet facilities for both able and disable bodied spectators , a media room,a medical / treatment room and additional storage space. These improvements combined with better access to the ground also allows the facilities to be of benefit to other local groups that use the adjacent Council park. An objective of the club is to embrace equality and diversity and we are not only keen to develop our youth set up but we are also keen to become involved with other local community groups. As the club is now in the Lowland League we are determined to progress with further improvements to our stadium in the near future. This project has acted as the catalyst. Clubs at our level rely heavily on funding support as well as the Partnership grant and with backing from The Dalbeattie Initiative we have also received assistance from the local Council, the S.W.E.A.T. fund and from members of the local Community. From our initial contact with The Scottish Football Partnership to the final drawdown of funds we have received excellent help and advice from SFP Secretary Stuart McCaffrey who has guided us through the award process, for this we are most grateful. This award has enabled us to provide facilities which will be of benefit not only to Dalbeattie Star but also to the Dalbeattie Community”.
