The purpose of The Scottish Football Partnership’s Growing the Game Award is to assist Scottish FA Quality Mark clubs add one new team to their playing membership. The funding provided assists with the start-up cost of a new team and is delivered in conjunction with the Regional Football Development staff. This ambitious pilot project aims to create 60 new Grassroots teams during the 2014/15 season.
Leith Athletic F.C. (South East Region)
Under-15 Girls section
16 new players created
2 new coaches
11 -v- 11 format of the game
Graham McEwan, Head of Girls section at Leith Athletic F.C. said “Leith Athletic Girls U-15’s would like to thank The Scottish Football Partnership for awarding the team £500 towards much needed equipment. The U-15s team were formed with a mixture of players coming through our player pathway and new recruits to the team, some of which have never played for a team before. They currently compete in the Frankie Brown U-15 South East League in their first season playing 11 a-side football. This fund will go a huge way towards providing the team with new training kit. At present, most of the girls currently turn up to training and games in their own clothes due to a lack of funding available. The team tried to secure sponsorship for training kit at the start of the season, however this has proven difficult to obtain due to the girls season starting in March and most local businesses indicating they were not able to provide sponsorship that early in the year.”
With this grant from The Scottish Football Partnership, the girls can now look and feel like a team both on and off the field of play. This award will allow players to turn up to training and games proudly wearing our club crest, looking and feeling like a team, which will complement the great team spirit that already exists in the squad. The cost to kit out the entire U-15 girl’s squad with training kit is around £650, so this grant will go a massive way to achieving this target. We fully expect all players to have training kit shortly and feel like a valued member of Leith Athletic F.C. U-15 Girls. We hope this will give the players more confidence, make them realise that people do care and help them achieve their ultimate potential. Thank you Scottish Football Partnership!”