Royals answer charity call

Thousands of young Gambian players have Sutton Coldfield Town to thank after the Evo-Stik NPL First Division South club acted as internet middle man for football charity Kit Aid.

Coaches at the African state’s Gift of Nema Football Academy emailed the Royals for help and after a flurry of emails between them, Royals secretary Bill Worship and the charity, a delivery of kit and training aids was duly dispatched.

The Royals are the latest Non-League club to back Kit Aid, the Evo-Stik NPL’s official charity partner this season. They are now planning to start organising donations of their own among the hundreds of players every week playing day and night on their all weather pitches at Coles Lane.

Sutton Coldfield Secretary Bill Worship said the club was delighted to act as middle men after he received the original email from Gambia asking for aid and were looking forward to doing more themselves now they's seen the charity swing into action.

He said: "It takes nothing to acknowledge an email and it is great to know something good has come out of it like this. I like to try and answer every email and we just put them together with Kit Aid who did the rest. I’ll be certainly be carrying on with the policy as you never know who you could help.

"We have a 3G pitch that is used day and night seven days a week so we’re thinking about asking the players and teams who use it to donate and we’ll be passing them on to Kit Aid too."

Kit Aid’s founder Derrick Williams, MBE, said: "The Evo-Stik NPL partnership paid dividends once again and we were really pleased to have helped share kit and contacts via our charity partner Football Gambia."

Since its foundation in 1998 KitAid has sent more than 200,000 donated shirts to less fortunate footballers around the world with support from a host of Non-League’s leading clubs including KitAid Ambassador clubs Witton Albion, FC United of Manchester, Marine and Chesham.