Posted on Tue 08 February 2011

About

The Ashfield area of Nottinghamshire, close to Mansfield and the M1 motorway, is best known for being the birthplace of Harold Larwood, legendary England cricketer, but it may soon be known for producing a generation of budding England footballers too.

FC Interski, a Mansfield club, has been working very hard with the help of Fair Share Trust to extend the range of football coaching services available to the local community and now has a thriving youth club scene.

“We started out really small and basic,” says Keir Barsby, football coach. “We had jumpers for goalposts, real grassroots stuff. But with the help from Fair Share we’ve been able to draw down money to help develop to certain professional standards.”

A mobile trailer stands to the side of the pitch. Within it there is storage space for floodlights, footballs and training equipment to help develop skills such as dribbling and ball control, batteries for the floodlights and charging facilities and a toilet. The trailer goes to three local areas – Hillocks, Carsic and Leamington – and it enables Keir and his coaching team to offer a full range of training sessions to the local children and adults of Ashfield.

“We’ve got some kind of football provision every day of the week,” Keir explains. “There are teams for all ages from under 7s to adult teams, and we’ve got provision for players with disabilities. We also have a strong training team – I’m encouraging the parents to train as coaches. We aim to get them all at level 1 coaching qualification within six months.”

The football provision offers something for whole families to look forward to in what is quite a deprived area. The coaching skills build the capacity and skills of the adults, encouraging them to volunteer and get involved in their local community, as well as learning administration skills in running the different club sides. The children get to interact and stay healthy, as well as building their confidence and social skills.

“I get stopped in the street,” says Keir Barsby, football coach and local resident. “Parents come up to me and tell me how much their children want to come to the training sessions and games. We’ve got boys and girls being referred to professional clubs. It’s really making a difference.”

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Posted on Tue 08 April 2008 | source: Worksop Guardian

THREE Sutton community groups are celebrating after they scooped multi-thousand pound Lottery grants to run a range of projects in the town.

CHAT, Eastside Centre and Sutton Community College will carry out a number of activities in the Leamington, Carsic and New Cross areas after they were awarded lucrative grants ranging from £25,866 to £40,925 from the Big Lottery Fair Share Programme.

Activities include establishing new music, dance and drama workshops in Carsic, extending similar workshops at the Eastside Centre in New Cross, teenage health drop-in facilities in Carsic and Leamington and extended school sports and dance events.

Said Paul McDuell, chairman of the Nottinghamshire Community Foundation, which oversees Fair Share: “We are delighted to be able to award these grants and support the work they are doing in their community.

“Nottinghamshire Community Foundation is all about supporting local people to find local solutions to local problems by distributing money to people who really do and will make a difference for the future.”