Clarendon Juniors Football Club celebrating hat trick of successes
The good news comes as they gear up for a new season
Clarendon Juniors Football Club have been given three reasons to celebrate this summer.
Firstly, after finishing as runners-up last year, they have been awarded Club of the Year in The FA and McDonalds Grassroots Football Awards 2021.
They were nominated for their positivity, dedication and significant growth.
They were presented with the prize by the CEO of the Wiltshire FA last week.
Meanwhile, Clarendon Juniors are also now England Football Accredited.
Being recognised as England Football Accredited demonstrates clubs have a sound infrastructure and promote respect with the overall aim to create environments where people want to stay in the game and develop lifelong passion for the sport.
But the success doesn't stop there.
They will also now be able to improve their facilities after securing more than £100,000 in grants.
This includes £68,000 from The Football Foundation.
The club is based in Winterslow and has ten mini teams, aged 7-11, seven junior teams, aged 12-18 and two men’s teams.
They play at Barry's Field, and this funding will allow them to keep the facilities in good condition and make it better.
Richard Pearce, Club Chairman said:
“We are delighted to be announcing these successes at our presentation evening. We want to thank Winterslow Parish Council and all our dedicated volunteers for helping us achieve so much over the past season.
We are excited about the investment we are receiving from The Football Foundation, the Pitch Maintenance Fund will allow us to adopt a formal maintenance plan for our home ground, Barry’s Field, something which we haven’t been able to do before, meaning our pitches are currently graded below average.
We will also be using the funds to purchase goal posts and a tractor and also do some improvements to the grounds by increasing the capacity of the car park and protecting the wildlife at the back of the field. The future is looking bright for the club.
Not only are we excited about the improvements we can make to our club with the funding we have received, but we are also delighted to be an England Football Accredited club. We have set some high standards to ensure we are offering the ideal environment for players, coaches and volunteers, and to make sure we maintain our ethos of providing inclusive football to all of our local community.”
The last two seasons have seen disruptions for all football clubs, so it's hoped the upcoming 2021/22 one will go ahead as normal.