Shot in the arm for disability football

EVO-STIK League Belper Town can look forward to continuing the vital work of the club’s community arm in disability football thanks to a successful grant funding bid.

Officials from the FA Charter Standard club’s Belper Community Football Programme are celebrating after securing a £1,400 grant for their disability football sessions at the town’s leisure centre from Foundation Derbyshire, the successor to the Derbyshire Community Foundation.

The Premier Division's Nailer say funding for the Saturday morning sessions had almost been exhausted but will now continue for at least another 12 months after the grant was sourced from the John Weston Charitable Fund which is managed by Foundation Derbyshire to support young people and their community organisations in Duffield and south west Derbyshire.

Dave Laughlin, Belper Town’s company secretary and secretary of the BCFP, said: "The support that we have been given by Foundation Derbyshire and the John Weston Fund trustees has been brilliant and the timing is just perfect. This is the third year that the John Weston Charitable Fund has been the principal funder of the disability football sessions and without their continued financial support, the scheme could not have continued."

He added: "They are keen to see the disability football sessions flourish now that they have been relocated to Belper Leisure Centre. We would like to increase the numbers of disabled footballers, aged between six and 16, making use of the sessions and this grant will allow us to become much more financially sustainable."