Blackpool FC Community Trust column: A week's work that's well worth celebrating

While we have returned to the tiered system in tier three, the new guidance allows for us to restart our delivery of outdoor sporting activity.

This week we have been able to restart our walking football, vets football and disability football programmes, and our Kicks sessions for young people.

When the restrictions set groups of 30 – including staff and coaches – we couldn’t allow the sessions to take place in their normal capacity because we normally see 40 to 50 attend sessions together.

Finally, our support in this area can start to look a little bit more normal.

On Wednesday this week, we also celebrated seven years since we first launched our walking football programme.

At the time, we were one of the very first football clubs to start this provision and the growth of this area of work has been unbelievable.

We now deliver six sessions every week, have more than 120 regular attendees and there is a fantastic club formed in the BFC Senior Seasiders, who represent our great town in local, regional, national and international competitions.

I’m very proud to sit on the committee and it’s great fun.

This week, we have also launched our Christmas campaign with Blackpool Football Club, Simon Sadler, his family and Segantii Capital Management.

After some consultation with local primary schools, we were made aware that approximately 700 children will potentially not have a present to open on Christmas morning. A devastating statistic.

We decided that we wanted to launch a campaign to buy each of these children a gift.

After discussing this fact with Simon and his wife Gillian, they were devastated and wanted to contribute and make this a bigger campaign than we had originally planned.

We have already seen our JustGiving donation page reach more than £16,000, which has included donations from many of our first-team players, local businesses, staff from both the Trust and club, and many local fans and members of our amazing community.

To top it off, once we hit our deadline for donations, Simon, his family and partners of Segantii Captial Management have agreed to match every pound raised.

We will now purchase a significant toy for each child and a gift box, full of sweets and treats.

Myself and the team have been absolutely blown away by the support that has been given locally.

It’s the first time we have launched a fundraising campaign and we are genuinely shocked at the support that has been shown.

All I can say is thank you – but we are not finished yet.

So if you can kindly spare a pound, £5, £10 or even more, please go to www.bfcct.co.uk to find the JustGiving details and help a local child.

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