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Dr Martens League Clevedon Town’s has become the first
club in the county to be honoured with the prestigious FA
Community Club Award, for its commitment to the development
of youth football for both sexes.
The award – sponsored by MacDonalds - is one of the
first in the South West to be granted to a non-professional
club, and is part of the FA Charter Standard scheme launched
in February 2001. The scheme recognises clubs that have met
stringent criteria for the development of football for boy
and girls of all ages. This includes providing the security
of a child protection and equal opportunities policy, together
with recognized junior team coaching awards, first aid and
a code of conduct for players, management and parents.
Commending the club on its achievement, Somerset FA Football
Development Officer Kevin Hodges commented:
“There are three different levels of award which a club
can be considered for, and the Community Club award is the
pinnacle. Clevedon Town are the first club at any level in
the County to achieve this accolade and it speaks volumes
about what they’ve done – and plan to do –
to develop safe, constructive coaching facilities for boys
and girls in the region. The award is a kite mark for a secure,
quality coaching environment”.
Clevedon Town Director, Gary Bradshaw – also the Hand
Stadium Manager, praised the efforts of the team responsible
for the achievement:
“The Community Club award is the result of a lot of
ward work by a team of people, spearheaded by Ian Thompson
who has worked extremely hard on the project over the last
six months. Through Martin Conway, the Clevedon Town Juniors
Manager, the club had already done some work, aimed at achieving
the first award level, and, together with Dick Finn, of Clevedon
Town Ladies, Alan Shaw and Kevin Braithwaite, we’ve
taken the development on to the highest level.
We now have a club that can offer all young people in the
community a quality of football education on a par with clubs
like Bristol City and Bristol Rovers. The Hand Stadium’s
facilities are truly open to anyone, and we are now planning
to outreach to more schools in the area and, to develop these
facilities even more in 2003. In particular we will be focusing
on providing more opportunities for disabled children. The
award has been an advantage for other clubs in helping attract
funding for the development of more facilities for the community
and we hope this may be of some help to us in 2003 as we seek
to expand the facilities at the Hand Stadium for male and
female players of all ages and abilities”.
The Somerset FA and MacDonalds presented Clevedon Town with
a plaque before the game, together with sweatshirts, footballs,
bibs and other training equipment.
More recently, Clevedon Town Ladies SBW have also been awarded
FA Charter status [more]
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