Scarborough Athletic eager to strengthen links with the local community after cash boost

The Trident Community Foundation, established by landmark grassroots sporting investment programme Pitching In, provides grants to clubs that allow them to shape and develop their own future.

Steve Machen, community director at Scarborough, is the man in charge of the club’s raft of projects.

And developing their walking football section is just one of the initiatives that Machen believes the TCF funding will go towards boosting.

He said: “There’s a number of initiatives that we’ve been working on.

“Walking football was the first thing we started to use the grant on so that we were able to set up sessions down at our ground.

“We run that on Monday and Thursdays and we’ve got a decent attendance at the moment.

“We’re aiming to see how we can develop it and whether we can open it up to a women’s section, young people, disabled adults – it’s all about inclusion, really.”

Pitching In is a multi-million-pound grassroots sport investment programme set up by Ladbrokes with the support of its owner Entain.

Like all football clubs across the land, Scarborough’s plans were thrown into disarray by the unsavoury impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

And while he admits that it’s still a strange time, Machen re-affirmed Scarborough’s commitment to making improvements, not just for the club but for the whole wider community.

“It has been a pretty weird time and it still is to an extent,” he added.

“But we made a conscious decision to continue to meet on a regular basis as a board – what we were doing was planning for when football resumes.

“We’ve always been active in the community and we’ve always tried to focus on what we can do in the community.

“At the same time, it’s difficult to do on a shoestring because the club is run by volunteers.

“When the Trident grant came through, we thought we’ll aim high for this and we want it to benefit the community right the way across the board.”

With so many volunteers putting their time into supporting the club, Machen and Scarborough are now also focused on tackling more issues at the heart of the local community.

“What we wanted to do with the initiative and the grant was to include as much of the community as possible,” added Machen, whose club are one of over 30 across the Pitching In

Southern, Isthmian and Northern Premier Leagues to have so far received a TCF grant.

“We’re looking at areas like loneliness, isolation, wellbeing and just wanting to get people active again.

“With the money, we’ve been able to do pretty much all of that, although some of the initiatives are just taking off.”

Ladbrokes, with the support of its owner Entain, has launched a multi-million pound investment programme, Pitching In, designed to support and promote grassroots sports. For more details see: https://entaingroup.com/sustainability/pitching-in/