Wortley FC Club Room Build

Who are we?

Founded in 1974, Wortley FC, Leeds, is a community and family-based football club, which is dedicated to the furtherance of youth and senior football. The club is proud to be a FA Accredited Club which is the kite mark for a safe and friendly environment to learn the skills of football with FA qualified coaches.

We are a registered charity (Number 1126918). We provide football opportunities for children and adults from ages 4 to 18 and beyond into open age football.

We currently have 20 teams playing in the Garforth League from under 7's-under 18's, plus 2 Open Age Mens teams in the Yorkshire Amateur League.

In recent years we have started to build a Girls section and have 3 Teams in the West Riding Girls Football league and also have younger girls training each week, as well as an Open Age Ladies Team in the West Riding County Women’s League.

Our popular fun Saturday morning sessions for children aged 4-6 are a great hit with over 30 boys and girls attending each week.

We receive no grants or support to be able to offer football to the Community and are looking for sustainable ways to continue this for future generations.

https://www.wortleyfc.org.uk/

Our Ethos

Our ethos is “Football for all“ We do not offer trials at our club and believe that any child that wants to take part in the game should be provided with the opportunity to do so, we also do not believe in charging expensive fees which include the provision of Kits for free to the children and make our club accessible to all both physically and financially.

The club is run by dedicated volunteers from the committee members to managers and coaches, who give many hours of their free time each week keeping the club running. Many of the volunteers either play with the adult teams or have children in the junior teams. This is what makes the club have a real family focus.

The aim of the club is to give the children the opportunity to not only develop football skills, but also to make a positive impact on their lives by making new friendships, promoting health and well-being through increased physical activity, reducing anti-social behaviour and experiencing the feeling of being part of a team and their community.

We support ourselves in a range of ways including Subs, Sponsorship from local Businesses, Charity events etc.

Community impact

We have our own Pitches based in Blue Hill Lane which several of our teams play on from U7 to Open age, however with the number of teams and children we support we must lease pitches and some changing rooms from the council and other local Sports clubs, these don’t come cheap and are one of our biggest outlays along with indoor training facilities in the winter months.

Why are we crowdfunding?

We have come a long way with little. Our Pitches at Blue Hill lane were partially funded by The Football Foundation however also at a great cost to the Club with the Players from all age groups also raising funds.

The Club at the time couldn’t afford to build a club room/ Kitchen/ Social area and with Covid hitting the Club finances hard we are unable to put this dream into reality.

The pitches are improving and continue to cost money to maintain, we have Changing rooms and toilets but no way to offer a facility which could help us be self-supporting in the future.

What We Would Like?

We would like to raise funds to build a new and sustainable club room complete with kitchen and a community room where players, parents, carers and the community could meet. An artist impression of the new facility is below.

We would like to install a kitchen & bar along with seating areas where parents can enjoy a coffee whilst their child trains or players can enjoy a drink after their match or training session. We would like to provide snacks on match or training days. It would also be used for social events such as our end of year presentations and community fund raisers.

The club house would be a great asset to be able to be used not only by the club and its members but the Community of Wortley and surrounding areas.

The club has operated for 49 years without a true club room, and we feel this is an important step in the next stage of our development and to help the club become more self-sufficient.

The Club has already outlaid £6,924 to hire an Architect to draw up the plans and help us submit our planning application as well as engage with the Football Foundation to look at options to assist in the funding of the scheme.

We now have received the green light from the council with the planning application approved by LCC in September 2023.

However, we now need to spend more time and money (up front) to submit the final application to the Football Foundation to gain some of the funding and get professional help find other avenues to help us achieve the £80,000 the club needs to provide towards the scheme.

How you can play your part

There are five simple ways to help us reach our target and make this project a reality.

1. Make a donation. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. If you are a Business who would like to donate we can raise a Charity invoice for your Tax Accounts. Just contact us to discuss

4. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

5. If you want to run your own fundraiser to support us, maybe a sponsored activity or similar, use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!