UK financial giant Barclays teamed up with football ambassadors Ian Wright and Kelly Smith for a spot of plastering and painting at Cheetham Hill Sports Club’s new girls’ changing facilities in Manchester as part of the ongoing, Barclays Community Football Fund’s (BCFF) nationwide mission to make football more inclusive to under-represented groups – particularly girls.
The transformational construction and refurbishment project was carried out in partnership with Volunteer It Yourself (VIY) and aims to provide girls in the local community with greater access to the facilities they need to play football.
On 7 February, Wright and Smith (both former Arsenal and England internationals) were joined on the DIY initiative – the first phase in a three-month club improvement project – by six local young volunteers from social enterprise VIY who are all being trained in skills such as painting, plastering and carpentry. As well as benefitting their local community, these young volunteers receive hands-on work experience with professional tradespeople as the train and study for the Entry Level 3 City & Guilds trade skills accreditation, employability skills and six-month post-project support.
The Cheetham Hill Sports Club build is just one part of a nationwide partnership between Barclays Community Football Fund and VIY, which was brokered by sponsorship agency Reg&Co, and the Greater Manchester club puts inclusivity at its heart as it sets out to promote, develop, and facilitate sports at all ages and levels within the wider community. The club currently has three active female football teams and yet, until this project, had no dedicated female changing facilities. The work to change this began on 25 January and will finish in April 2023 when the revamped facilities will accommodate the club’s female sports teams – giving more than 50 girls a safe space to change and a deeper sense of belonging to their local football club and community.
The project was promoted primarily through a blend of PR and social media with video and photo content amplified across brand, charity partner and both players’ platforms.
The transformation of the girls changing rooms at Cheetham Hill was made possible through the Barclays Community Football Fund (BCFF): an initiative which emerged as a key pillar in the banking brand’s commitment to make football more inclusive to under-represented groups. The fund provided a grant to VIY for a project which was also backed by Sport England (who matched the funding), Dulux (which supplied paint) and Travis Perkins (which brought in the building materials).
‘I just want every girl to be able to play football if they want to. There are so many things that women’s and girls’ football needs. First, they need the pitch and the coaches. They also need facilities where they can feel safe, secure and valued, just like the boys do,” commented former Arsenal and England attacker turned football analyst and Barclays’ ambassador Wright. “That’s why the Barclays Community Football Fund is important; it’s giving money to local projects in communities around the UK. There’s no point just focusing on the elite game; this is where the love and dreams start. This kind of investment into grassroots is where it’s going to make a real difference.’
‘All I’ve ever wanted to do was play football. Growing up, I was kicked off my local team because I was a girl and there was no girls team to join. It was soul-destroying,” added fellow former Arsenal and England striker Smith. “Giving girls a space they belong in football will make a difference. That’s why this build at Cheetham Hill is important. It’s exactly what I wanted and needed as a kid.’
‘Working in partnership with organisations like the Barclays Community Football Fund and Sport England helps us all work towards the same goal – helping more young people towards more active lives, be it through volunteering, football or any other physical activity,” added VIY CEO Tim Reading. “Through the combined power of volunteering and learning vocational skills, disengaged local young people are helping to improve vital community spaces to make this happen, like Cheetham Hill Sports Club.”
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As well as its long-term Premier League sponsorship (it used to be the title partner and is now the league’s official banking partner), Barclays is a pioneer in supporting women’s and girls’ football and has made major investments since 2019 into the Barclays Women’s Super League and the FA Girls’ Football School Partnership all part of the mission to give girls equal access to football in schools by 2024.
BCFF helps reduce inequalities across football in the UK primarily through grants available annually to groups that wish to start offering football programmes or expand their existing ones to new, under-represented audiences. The project primarily focuses on women’s sport and young people from lower socio-economic and under-represented groups, as well as racially diverse communities, people with disabilities, and people from the LGBTQ+ community, the fund is set to support thousand across the UK.
Thus far, around 5,500 different community groups have received a total investment of
£1m-a-year and have engaged more than 300,000 young people in inclusive football activities.
This latest wave of work follows on from similar schemes in Manchester: such as the sustainable community pitch unveiled by Phil Foden and Ella Toone in late 2022 and projects supported by Mayor Andy Burnham to support more girls getting into football.
Previous recent BCFF marketing initiatives have included September 2022’s Grassroots Campaign launch developed in harness with creative agency M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment.
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