Football Foundation money is set to benefit yet another grassroots football community with Bishops Lydeard AFC ready to unveil brand new facilities.
Formed in 1912, the Somerset club have just completed building their brand new clubhouse thanks to a grant of almost £350,000 from the nation’s number one sports charity, the Football Foundation.
The Football Association, along with the Premier League and the Government, donate £15m annually to the Football Foundation and the new half million pound project in Taunton has also seen contributions from local stakeholders such as Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Bishops Lydeard Parish Council.
Over 400 youngsters are on the books at Bishops Lydeard AFC and the brand new clubhouse features four dual gender team changing rooms with showers, two match officials changing rooms, male and female plus wheelchair accessible toilets, a medical room, ramped access and a clubroom with kitchen.
Delighted club chairman, Peter Durman, commented: “We are a community club and this new facility will give us a long awaited and much needed ‘home’ allowing us to take the next step in our plans to develop football and other sports in the community.
“The club motto is ‘Passion and Pride’ which we have in abundance throughout the club and we appreciate the support of the Football Foundation and other partners in this project to whom we are all sincerely grateful.”
FA Regional Facilities Manager for the South West, Simon Wood, explained more about the environment friendly facility: “The new building incorporates sustainable technologies including low energy lighting, high levels of insulation, roof lights and sun tubes to make the best use of natural sunlight plus rain harvesting for the WCs and pitch watering.”
The club are already planning for future football provision by launching an U18 intermediate side that will help bridge the gap between the youth and open age games plus a disability football setup which will provide pathways into the Somerset County FA’s emerging Disability Football structure.
