Club development programme in full swing

In the summer of 2011 the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League joined together with League sponsors Media Village and Sport England Sportsmatch to fund a club development project within 12 clubs. Member clubs were invited to take part in the pilot project with four clubs selected from each Division of the League.
The clubs selected to take part in the pilot project were:

• Durham City
• Frickley Athletic
• Grantham Town
• Harrogate Railway Athletic
• Kendal Town
• Leek Town
• Lincoln United
• Market Drayton Town
• Mickleover Sports
• North Ferriby United
• Prescot Cables
• Warrington Town

Each Clubs has been visited by a professional advisor and a review was undertaken of the club management and infrastructure. A bespoke report, for consideration by the Directors, was produced for each club making recommendations about how they could build capacity and sustainability within their club.

The pilot project continues until the end of the current season with 75% of the pilot clubs already having received further benefit from members attending a grant funding workshop held at their club.

The response from the participating clubs has been extremely favourable with comments such as;

• Club A: ‘Imagine for one minute if the Premier League or FA decided to create a fund which resulted in say 20 full time posts for 2 or 3 years with the specific task of helping 200/300 non-league clubs in a similar way that this scheme is set up. I reckon within 3 years the non-league landscape would look very different and many many clubs would be in a far better position to cope with the day to day financial pressures that are prevalent at our level of football.’
• Club B ‘………the initial meeting was extremely informative. Already, we have lots of ideas and plans to take the club forward.’

A number of clubs have received support both with preparing grant applications, and with proof reading their existing efforts. One club has secured £12,500 grant funding as a direct consequence of the project.

Evo-Stik NPL Director and Media Village Club Builder Project Manager Steve Hobson said, "The level of interest and the commitment shown by those taking part has been encouraging.

"Where clubs have fully embraced the programme, they are implementing change and, in most cases, already seeing benefits. Some clubs have secured grant funding and others are preparing the way for new income generation streams, and grant funding applications."

Media Village Club Builder will continue until the end of the current season whereupon a further report will be published.