The history of the club is detailed within other pages on this site. It has come a long way from the early 80s but the reasons for our existence have stayed with us and can be summarised as follows: –
We are a Registered Charity and our charitable aims are to provide football facilities for every person that wants to play the game of football. We are obliged to provide a team for anyone who wants to play the game – no matter what their ability is. This aim has been met as we now have 39 teams and aim to have 50 minimum over the next few years.
The Club badge includes the motto ‘ To Compete and Enjoy ‘. We are not about winning at all costs – we have teams that vary in ability and we aim to improve the ability of each and everyone of our players!
The Club is heavily involved with the charity Kits for Africa – supplying old kits for distribution to underprivileged children in Africa. We are aiming to strengthen this link by taking a party of volunteers to Ghana.
We pride ourselves on our organisational skills both on and off the field. We aim to be ‘the best at whatever we do’ and set high standards for ourselves.
We have very strong links in the Community – we are the football club link to Cheslyn Hay high School; we are the official feeder club to Walsall FC; we have received an heraldic shield from Great Wyrley Parish Council for our work in the Community; we won an award from Cannock and Rugeley Chronicle newspaper and are about to receive an heraldic shield from Cheslyn Hay Parish Council – and much more.
We support the work of the Royal British Legion – laying wreathes at Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley Remembrance Day services.
We will provide support to any community group and have excellent working relationships with all local schools. Recent examples of this are Catering Van and manpower support to Glenthorne Primary School at their reopening celebration and to Great Wyrley Parish Plan group in delivering and collecting a residents questionnaire.
The Club has also signed up to the Change4life initiative launched by the Government to improve health within young people.
The Club support the local Community Police by providing free school holiday coaching to boys and girls in Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley, who would ordinarily be walking the streets.
And finally – we were voted Community Club of the Year for Staffordshire in 2004 and 2006 and topped this with Community Club for the Region in 2006 – in essence one of the Top 10 clubs in the country. The Club again won the Community Club of the Year award in 2009 – the third time in 6 years!!
The Club has held the highest Charter Standard award – The Community Club Charter – since 2004 and is one of a select group of 250 Clubs nationally. To achieve this we have to have Child Protection policies, Equality policies, Behaviour policies, minimum number of boys, girls and adult teams in place, links with local schools and professional clubs as an absolute minimum – we have these and much more.
We recently lost one of our players, Liam Keeling, to meningitis and we are now supporting the family in raising funds for Meningitis UK via a number of fund raising events. The first of these, a Charity match between the Club’s First Team and Walsall FC Old Boys raised £6,950..
We strive for continued improvement in all that we do – if you have any suggestions to enable us to do this, please let us know.
Keith Hardy
Chairman