THE
Mayor of Thurrock, Cllr Cathy Kent, will open Thurrock Association Sunday League’s new floodlit all-weather pitch and changing facility on Saturday 11 March 2017 at 10.45am.
The new third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP) is expected to create 20 new grassroots football teams and will be used all-year-round by a number of local grassroots clubs, including: Lakeside YFC; Thurrock FC and Thurrock Youth FC. Premier League side Chelsea FC will also deliver a junior soccer school on-site for children aged five to nine- years-old.
The state-of-the-art facility was developed in partnership with Thurrock Borough Council and made possible thanks to a £497,528 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation.
Since 2000, the Football Foundation Funding Partners’ investment has provided 395 grants worth £20.3m towards grassroots sports projects worth nearly £50m across the whole of Essex.
Founded in 2000, the Football Foundation is the largest sports charity in the UK funded by the Premier League, The FA and Government, via Sport England. It develops new and refurbished grassroots sports facilities in order to improve the quality and experience of playing sport at the grassroots level. Since it was launched in 2000, the Foundation has awarded around 15,000 grants worth more than £580m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £800m –£1.4bn of investment into the grassroots game.
