ISSUE 36 WORLD CUP LEGEND GORDON BANKS’ THUMBS-UP FOR GRASSROOTS INVESTMENT ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: • £12.8m invested into grassroots from Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund • Peter Schmeichel helps celebrate tenth anniversary of our Barclays Spaces for Sports partnership • Exclusive Q&A with former England and Villa striker Darius Vassell ABOUT THE FOOTBALL FOUNDATION TEAM TALK The Football Foundation is the UK’s largest sports Due to our world-leading systems and proven winning Barclays Spaces for Sports – the largest CONTENTS Words from the charity. Set up in 2000 by the Premier League, expertise, the Foundation is the chosen delivery ever sport Corporate Social Responsibility Chief Executive, The FA and the Government, we are focused on organisation for the Premier League & The FA programme in the UK, which has developed over WHAT’S INSIDE THIS ISSUE OF ONSIDE Paul Thorogood improving public sports facilities across the country. Facilities Fund. This is a £102m commitment to 200 multi-sport sites across the country – and the improving local sports sites, particularly in deprived Mayor of London: Sports Facilities Fund, which has Since 2000, we have awarded around 13,000 grants areas, which also seeks to strengthen the links provided a tangible Olympic legacy for the capital, With another exciting Premier League season worth £500m thanks to investment provided by the between professional football clubs and their in the form of over 100 new or refurbished well underway, we are all enjoying watching some Premier League, The FA and the Government via local communities. multi-sport facilities. of the best footballers in the world. Of course that Sport England. We have multiplied their donations is at the elite level of the game; the focus of the by securing partnership funding totalling £700m, The Foundation also delivers major community Football Foundation is very much on the grassroots, maximising the investment into the grassroots to sports programmes on behalf of other where all those great players began their careers. the tune of more than £1.2bn. organisations. These include the multi-award A strong and vibrant grassroots game is a critical foundation for the professional game and by extension the national representative teams. A number of studies, including The FA Chairman’s TOP recent England Commission, has highlighted a lack of quality facilities at the grassroots level – especially TWEETS playing surfaces – as a serious weakness in the 04|COVER STORY 06|ONSIDE NEWS development of the game in this country. We have recently announced the first two rafts of investment from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund for this year, amounting to £12.8m. This investment will ensure that the Foundation can continue to build new or refurbish more changing rooms and floodlit third generation (3G) artificial grass pitches (AGP), so that coaching and matches can take place irrespective of bad weather and well into the dark winter evenings. PREMIER LEAGUE Our cover story, which you can read on pages four 12|& THE FA FACILITIES FUND and five, is a perfect example of how a new 3G AGP will not just benefit one team, but a whole community all-year round. England’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who opened the facility, was quick to underline the huge health benefits that come with facilities like this, too. Other stars of the game, past and present, such as Mike Summerbee, Joe Cole and Sir Trevor Brooking, are also included in this issue, lending their valuable and much appreciated support for our work. We have also recently celebrated a decade of delivering the multi-award winning Barclays Spaces BEFORE AND AFTER PARTNERSHIPS 10| 22| for Sports programme. This issue reports on four celebratory events held across the country (pages 22 & 23), which showcased the success of a scheme which has provided more than 200 local 03| TEAM TALK 21| FOOTBALL STADIA multi-sports facilities used by more than 53,000 04| COVER STORY IMPROVEMENT FUND people every week. 22| PARTNERSHIPS 06| ONSIDE NEWS I hope you enjoy reading this Issue of ONSIDE. 10| BEFORE AND AFTER 28| ON TARGET 12 PREMIER LEAGUE 30| MATCH REPORT & THE FA FACILITIES FUND 32| PLAYER PROFILE: 20| GROW THE GAME DARIUS VASSELL 32| STAR PLAYER ONSIDE is printed on paper from sustainable Chief Executive FROM THE forests and published by the Football Paul Thorogood DUG-OUT Foundation, Whittington House, 19-30 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7EA. President Editor Rory Carroll The Rt Hon Lord Pendry PC E [email protected] T 0845 345 4555 F 0845 345 7057 W www.footballfoundation.org.uk Football Foundation Board of Trustees Deputy Editor Niall Malone Chairman: Gary Hoffman, Roger Burden, E [email protected] @FootballFoundtn The Rt Hon Richard Caborn, Rona Chester, Youtube.com/Footballfdn Jonathan Hall, Peter McCormick OBE, Contributors: Josh Bednash, Bradley Richard Scudamore Cleveland and Daniel Bermingham-Shaw flickr.com/footballfoundation linkedIn.com /football-foundation 2 ONSIDE | The Football Foundation Magazine | Issue 36 ONSIDE | The Football Foundation Magazine | Issue 36 3 COVER STORY GORDON BANKS LEAVES STOKE’S NEW 3G IN SAFE HANDS England’s World Cup winning keeper Gordon StreetGames Stoke-on-Trent; a national Banks beamed: “It is very pleasing to see the charity dedicated to developing sport in council and its partners investing in new facilities disadvantaged communities. like this,” as he opened a new third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP) in Stoke-On-Trent, Gordon, who made 200 appearances for Stoke made possible thanks to a Premier League & The City and 73 for England added: “Having top class FA Facilities Fund grant of £366,633. facilities can only encourage more people to play football and enjoy all the associated health The new facility at Dimensions Leisure Centre benefits that come with it.” will be used for five-a-side, seven-a side, nine-a side and 11-a-side football and will also host The pitches will strengthen many existing Staffordshire University’s league matches. partnerships with local leagues including Staffordshire County Minor Sunday Youth League, The site will also be used by the general public, Milton Youth League and North Staffs Junior as well as various community groups such as Youth League. 4 ONSIDE | The Football Foundation Magazine | Issue 36 ONSIDE | The Football Foundation Magazine | Issue 36 5 ONSIDE NEWS WE SAY GOODBYE TO DAVID AND PHIL VINCENT KEEPS GOOD KOMPANY AT PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON LAUNCH Premier League captains Vincent Kompany, Phil Jagielka, John O’Shea and Wes Morgan were joined by their respective managers at the Premier Both the Football Foundation and Football Stadia Improvement Fund (FSIF) League Season Launch, where a three-year £10.5m programme of recently said goodbye to two key servants of the game. support for primary school sport was announced. After nearly six years, Phil Smith (above left) has stepped down as Sport The announcement came at the Capital City Academy, North London, England’s representative on the Football Foundation Board of Trustees. which opened a new third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP) in January 2014 thanks to a grant from the Premier League & The FA After joining the Manchester FA in 1996 as General Secretary, Phil then Facilities Fund. joined The FA as Head of Public Affairs where he was responsible for policy, including working with the Government on the various issues affecting both The new programme will see Premier League and other professional professional and amateur football. In 2008 Phil left The FA to join Sport clubs provide community coaches to deliver fun, high quality and age England as Director of Sport, where he remains responsible for the funding appropriate PE and sport sessions in schools, providing a pathway into of national sports governing bodies in order to increase participation. competitive football opportunities for those that want them. We also bid a fond farewell to David Dent (above right) who has retired as When the programme was first trialled last season by the Premier Independent Chairman of the FSIF Safety and Improvement Panel after 15 League, 25 clubs (20 Premier league clubs and five Football League clubs) years of service. delivered over 66,000 PE lessons and sport sessions in 1,279 schools to over 103,000 pupils. David has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in football, starting as Secretary to Carlisle United FC in 1960, at the age of only 23. He spent 18 years at Carlisle United before moving to take up a similar role at Coventry City FC in 1978. David went on to join The Football League as Deputy Secretary in 1984 and then Secretary in 1989, before retiring in 2001. David joined the Board of the Football Trust, the forerunner to the FSIF, in 1990, and was appointed PREMIER LEAGUE & THE FA FACILITIES FUND Chairman of the FSIF Safety and Improvement Panel from its inception in 2000. Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation and Football AWARDS 155 GRANTS WORTH £12.8M INTO Stadia Improvment Fund, said: “On behalf of everyone at the Foundation, I would like to place on record our most sincere thanks to both David and Phil for their dedicated effort in support of the grassroots and lower levels THE GRASSROOTS of the game. The Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund has now invested £12.8m into Many of the new facilities are also strengthening the connection between “Phil’s passion for the national game at the grassroots level has always shone 155 grassroots projects across the country, following the first two investment professional football clubs and their local communities, particularly in the most through and I am sure that this will continue as he focuses on his very busy injections from the Fund.