Sport Wales: A Place for Sport has provided £675 of match funding
Improvement of Pitchside Dugouts
Pontyclun, Rhondda Cynon Taff, United Kingdom
Aim
We are working to raise funds to secure lockable doors to our pitchside dugouts to prevent damage and ensure they are accessible and usable.
Who are we?
Talbot Green Football Club is a well established and run football club based in the heart of the village, providing opportunities to play football for children from 5yrs through to adults in the Taff Ely & Rhymney Valley Leagues.
Why are we crowdfunding?
Over the past 18 months the club has tremendously worked hard to forge links with the wider community and specifically children, to provide a more structured and accessible pathway to junior and adult football.
Over the past several years the club has also worked closely with the local council to improve the facilities at Talbot Park in order to meet promotion criteria for the Seniors, as well as to provide an improved standard and safer environment for all age groups to use. As part of this work the club were successful in getting new changing room facilities erected at the club, as well as pitchside dugouts and starting the pitch lengthening to meet criteria, all of which came at a cost of over £90,000.
We cannot thank the council enough for their support in improving our facilities and supporting us in our redevelopment work, however their budget only stretches so far and cannot accommodate the additional work require to secure the ground, therefore we ask the local community to step in and help support us over the line.
How we’ll spend the money raised
Following the erection of dugouts at Talbot Park we have seen an increase in anti-social behaviour never before seen at the pitch. Overnight this sheltered area has attracted socialising, anti social behaviour and damage. This is extremely frustrating and upsetting to the club, having worked hard for several years to secure the funding and build, to have them essentially taken over and damaged by a small group.
A small group of children and youths are sitting and standing on the roof damaging it, as well as having drawn graffiti, profanity and all sorts of inappropriate messages over the dugouts. Additionally we have seen fires lit in them, faeces spread across the interior, condoms found on the floor and countless instances of litter and broken glass over the floor. These are used by children as young as 5 and it is totally unacceptable for these children to have to be exposed to this. We are constantly having to clean up and ensure the area is safe to use and play around however we cannot prevent this happening without a way of securing them overnight/outside of use.
We desperately need these facilities secured in order to prevent any further damage and deem them unusable. We also want to provide a professional and safe environment for our children to use our facilities and would like the, their carers and their families to be able to turn up to a game of football and not be exposed to the damage and profanity currently on display.
We are raising funds to add lockable steel doors to both dugouts to protect these and our children going forward and need your support to raise the funds. Please donate anything you can to help us hit our target as soon as possible!
THANK YOU!
This project successfully funded on 22nd July 2022