Leith Community Fund Report – October 2023

Dear John,

Please accept my apologies in the delay in sending through an update on the funds provided by Leith Community to Leith Athletic Football Club in October 2022. Last year, you awarded us two separate awards, the first was for our new girls’ section and the second to support the children from Ukraine. As requested, here is an update on how the money was used and the difference it made.

Girls Section Donation

The money received was used to purchase training and playing kit for the new girl’s section. This was a brand-new section and in the last year we have grown from two girls in the club up to thirty. These girls are now training twice a week and have just started playing games. We now have an u12 and u14 team playing regularly, this would not have been possible without your funding.

The next phase is to register the girls’ section with the SWFA in November, when we will enter the u12 and u14 teams into the leagues for these age groups to play competitively. Our ambition is to grow this further by introducing u8 and u10 teams, with the aim of eventually introducing an u16 and u18 team playing regularly. We have also entered discussions with a local lady’s team who have no player pathway with the aim of creating a partnership and bringing a girls community club with a pathway all the way from u6’s up to semi-professional women’s football to match the services we provide for the boys’ section at the club. 

Our target would be to grow this sustainably to provide a long-term solution for girls within leith to develop their football skills. On a conservative estimate, we would expect the girls’ section to grow to over one hundred girls within the next two years.

To support this growth, we politely ask if you would consider providing a similar award of £1,000 this year to allow us to buy equipment such as goals for the girls’ section, put two u18 girls through their coaching badges to support our growth plans by purchasing strips for the two new age groups. We estimate the total cost would be £4,000 but will match any contribution through our own fundraising for the section. We have recently launched a special edition Palozzi Strip which has sold over one hundred shirts making £1,000 for the girl’s section.

Ukraine Camp 

This money has been used to run a camp every Friday at Leith Links and to purchase kit for the children housed on the ship at Leith. At the outset, we averaged 20/30 children each week. This has gradually reduced, and we now only have 10 Ukraine children attending each Friday. This is fantastic news, as some of the children have been integrated into our teams or have now been placed into more permanent homes around the city (some of those children we have helped to find clubs closer to their permanent homes). After the summer, we took the decision to integrate the Ukraine Friday camp with our normal Friday camp for our club members at  meadowbank. This was to provide a sustainable solution for the long term and is giving a greater challenge to the Ukraine children by playing in a bigger group. We will continue to run this camp for local kids in the long term.

As a club, we are growing our services all the time to appeal to underrepresented communities within Leith. Our most recent adventure has been to enter a Leith Athletic Giants team into the newly created Warriors league. This team is focussed on supporting men with an oversized waistline and mental health issues to socialise with like minded people and work with an agreed plan to get fitter and reduce their waistline. We now have thirty local men within the squad, playing within this NHS sponsored league. The cost of running this new adventure is huge, driven by the fact we need specialised kit made to fit the players as they are not 
standard sizes, we also need to invest in first aid and psychologist support. If this is an area you would consider providing support to, please let me know. It is a growing problem within the community, and we are gobsmacked by the level of interest from men in the community who felt their opportunities to play football competitively had passed.

If you provide me with a mobile number, I would be happy to send on pictures from any of the above. We have placed quite a few on our social media recently.

If you require any further information, please let me know. 

Best regards.
Leighton Jones
Chairperson
Leith Athletic FC