Derry Half Marathon September 2023 - Culmore YFC

Hi, my name is Stephen. I have recently moved to the Culmore area and become part of the Culmore Youth Football Club, witnessing the fantastic community support and network the Derry and Culmore have to offer.

I also know what grassroots football gave me, and the foundations it gave me to go on and have a 20-year career playing semi-pro football in England. Including playing in the National League, numerous promotion play-offs, league titles, appearing on Match of the Day in the FA Cup, and picking up several Player of the Year awards. I also had the opportunity to play against some outstanding players and managers, including Joe Hart, Anton Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Matt Holland, Leon Britton, Jermaine Beckford, DJ Campbell, Julian Dicks, Justin Edinburgh, Stuart Nethercott, Danny & Nicky Cowley, Alan Devonshire, as well as being teammates with Alex Revell, Carl Griffiths, Scott Canham, Omer Riza, Darren Blewitt, and Gary Abbott to name a few. Some of my team will need to google some of these players to find out who they are and who they played for!!!

I hope I can use my experience to give others the same opportunities I had and Culmore YFC is a great club to provide this. I have recently begun coaching the under 16's team and my daughter is currently training with the under 5's I can see first-hand the effort and time everyone puts into making the training and the games the best possible experience for children and their families.

As a voluntary organisation, many individuals are giving up their spare time to run training sessions, organise matches, and ensure the appropriate things are in place that the FA require and ensuring a safe and welcoming environment for the community.

Whilst registration fees are paid for training facilities and equipment this can only go so far and it would be good to raise further funds to support the club, allow some investment, and continue to develop the good work that already takes place.

I've played for many coaches in my career, and many have left a lasting impression on me. I was lucky to have access to top coaches (and people), and equipment that supported both my individual development and creates the strong and successful teams I was lucky to be part of. With the money raised, I am looking to support the coaches at the club to further enhance their knowledge and coaching abilities and ensure the best equipment is available to them to allow them to put on enjoyable training sessions to develop the skills of all the children in the community.

As part of my fundraising, I will be running the Derry Half Marathon in September 2023 and would appreciate any donation towards this cause. As some of you may know, I retired from playing when my daughter was born, and despite a pretty much injury-free career, I've had an injury full retirement, rupturing my knee tendon twice in 2 years, the last time in February 2022. My recovery has been good but nowhere near my playing day levels so this is a good excuse to push my recovery further and dramatically improve my fitness levels in the process, I am sure a few extra donations may just help to get my race time down even further as well.

Thanks for all your support and any donation and of course if you are interested in joining one of the many Culmore YFC teams then you can find details of training and how to join on the club's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/culmoreyouthfc/?locale=en_GB

Stephen