Sports Pavillion and Community Wellbeing Centre

Aim

To build a sports pavillion and community wellbeing centre for the use and engagement of the Gabalfa community.

Our ultimate ambition is to reach the highest possible level in the Welsh Football Pyramid, in both men’s and women’s football.

To do this we will increase our membership by diversification. We will actively support and attract girls’ and women’s football teams whilst increasing our delivery of football for both genders at junior level.

We currently have long leases on two pitches at Lydstep Park, but we are only ever able to use one pitch at a time as our current changing facility, an old toilet block, can only accommodate 2 teams at a time. This seriously inhibits our growth as a club as currently some of our existing teams at junior and Youth level have to play their fixtures on public park pitches away from our home ground.

We have now submitted a grant application for a major project which will provide a new dressing room with accommodation for four teams plus match officials. The facility will also provide a venue for community use such as Mother and Baby Clubs, Senior Citizens Clubs, and fundraising events for local charities. In addition, we are planning to install an all-weather 3G playing surface which would be available to our neighbourhood schools and other local organisations. The pitch will be floodlit to allow maximum use.

Other priorities: -

• The prevention of vandalism with improved fencing.
• Engaging with local youths whose presence near our ground has a negative impact on our ability to attract more junior boys and girls and women’s teams.  We feel that the impact of the youth on or facilities does not make this appealing and can be intimidating. 
• We already work closely with the neighbouring schools and provide them with free use of our facilities for sports days and we want them to continue to feel that they are in a safe environment.  
• We will continue to work to unite our community – we are in an under privileged area of Cardiff and want to build relationships with the community and give something back in all areas e.g., coaching, well-being, and family fun days.
• Grow financially and attract more sponsorship from local businesses. 

We have two pitches one with a 114-seater stand, dug outs, storage containers, barriers, and low-level perimeter fencing. The pitch is of a high standard and one of the best in the division in which we play.  

Our second pitch is used by us under 13 team and district senior team. The pitch quality is poor, and we had previously submitted an expression of interest for barriers around this pitch. It can commonly get driven on and numerous times a month there are holes dug in the pitch by uncontrolled pets. Barrier and fencing would allow us to raise the standard of the pitch and give our junior footballers a far more suitable surface to which to develop their skills. Both pitches are maintained by us using mowers that we have purchased out of our limited club funds. 

Neither of the pitches are flood lit. We have an aspiration to get the main pitch floodlit as this will allow more use of the pitch as we can stagger the games across the weekend and evenings. This will allow us to recruit more teams.

Off pitch facility – Whereas our pitch is one of the best in our league are changing room facilities are probably the worst and are frowned upon by visitors. We have managed to get them to a standard that meets the bare minimum criteria. They are a converted 1950’s lavatory block.

Cafeteria/ meeting room – we also have the lease on a small building that we use to sell refreshments pre- and post-match. This was an old bookmaker’s premises. This does help us generate a small profit to assist with the costs of running our club. The new pavilion would provide a far more suitable and attractive facility and would be open to community groups on non-match days.

Funding will then have a massive impact on the immediate neighbours so the vandals/youths will not have a sheltered area to congregate and will move on. 

In turn we feel that the improved environment will allow us to develop our children’s teams, attract new coaches and allow us to generate some female teams within our set up. 

We are aiming to attract 40 female junior and senior players for the new season (2023-2024) the discussions with a women’s/girls’ club are at an advanced stage and we would continue to grow participation year on year.  

We currently have quite a diverse and BAME registration of players within our set up. 

Our ambition is not just to be a football club but also attract other sports to make us a multifunctional sports club. 

We hold a tier 3 ground certificate which was awarded by the Football Association of Wales in July 2020. A lot of hard work and all of our own money was put into this project to enable us to achieve this status. As a result, we were promoted to the Ardal Cymru South West league.

Subsequently we have been subject to frequent acts of vandalism focused particularly on our stand and dugouts. They currently provide shelter for local youths to indulge in illegal substances. Each occasion results in damage to the seating and building fabric and has been a constant drain on our extremely limited club funds. It has also had a negative on our community neighborhood with whom we have strong relationships. Whilst our long-term ambition is to engage with these youths and encourage them to participate in football, in the short term we need to make our facility secure from intrusion.  If we were to achieve this, it would discourage youths from gathering at the ground. This would have a positive impact for the neighbourhood.

In summary Cardiff Draconians is committed to providing a first-class facility for girls, boys, women, and men to participate in football into the foreseeable future. Our facility will also be a hub made available on non-match days for use by a variety of community groups 

This project successfully funded on 29th April 2023