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SAVING GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL - petition etc

 
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Pete’s Picture Palace
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Joined: 19 Feb 2013
Posts: 4215
Location: Wallington Surrey

PostPosted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:28 pm 
Post subject: SAVING GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL - petition etc
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Please click here to sign the petition

https://twitter.com/savegrassroots?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Neville Southall is a frequent Twitterer on this (and other) topics. Join him.

Now read on:-

Gordon Taylor got £2.2m last year, including a huge bonus, and a flash office, and buys Lowry paintings...... and what does he give to grass roots football? By the way, he's 73 years old. Shouldn't he retire?

The annual PFA budget is £17m and they allocated just £100,000 to head injuries and Alzheimers research over 5 years. That's £20,000 a year or 0.01% of budget. I'm sure Ryan Mason would be impressed with that.

Alexis Sanchez gets £400,000 per week and doesn't pay his tax bills allegedly. What does he give to grass roots football in the UK? I have no idea how much he donates in his native Chile. I'm not holding my breath.

Sky TV & BT Sport have spent £4.6bn to cover Premier League football for the next 3 seasons. What do they give to grass roots football?

I could go on but I'm sure you get my drift. Please sign that petition and force the powers-that-be to take action. What they don't seem to realise is that without Grass Roots Football, there will be no British players in the Premier League in 10-20 years' time. A few pennies here and there is not enough (FA gave "a record" £260 million over 5 years for instance when you consider how much they were paid by Sky & BT). It's a drop in the ocean.

On the Ryan Mason thread, you may have read my piece about Sutton United's 3G pitch (or 4G, I'm not actually sure how many G it is).

But basically the EFL have told them that if they get promoted to the Football League at the end of this season, and if they don't rip up their 3/4G pitch and install grass and have a pitch at least as good as Spotland, they will be relegated by 2 levels to the Vanarama South. The same applies to Bromley and Maidstone United.

Sutton invested £500,000 in their pitch. They don't have postponements, they use it 24/7 for training, kids, concerts, for other clubs to use (eg Sutton Common Rovers of the Combined Counties League Premier Div), and their players don't get burns on sliding tackles, the bounce is true, you don't even think about the pitch when watching a game. Ask Arsene.

It's the way forward. And the EFL will set them 2 steps and many £££ back.

It's all connected. Our game is run by money-grabbing dinosaurs.

We here on FPC are football lovers. We are allowing it to die in front of our very eyes. The least we can do is sign that petition so that someone else might do something about it.

I've said my piece. Some of you guys probably know more than me about aspects of this and may be active already, and if so I thank and congratulate you.

And I thank you all for your attention.

Scouse
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CNSOBU



Joined: 21 Jun 2015
Posts: 161

PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 8:28 am 
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So true. Thanks for reminding me. Signing up now.
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Five and In



Joined: 15 Sep 2015
Posts: 1409
Location: Dawlish, Devon

PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:43 am 
Post subject: SAVING GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL - petition etc
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I've added my name to the petition Pete.

This whole subject is one very close to my heart following the 17 years that I coached at Youth football level and I devoted a complete chapter to it in my book "Enjoy the Highs, Survive the Lows."

The club that I was with for the last eight of those years was a team put together by somebody who wanted to give football to kids that had been turned away by bigger clubs.
We set out to improve each player and never looked to replace anybody unless they moved away from the area.
As such we went from relegation fodder to three time Cup finalists and regular title contenders.
In my last game with the club, I fielded 9 of the original side that I inherited, no longer tiny kids, but young men.

We never received a penny from the FA to help us and were completely self funded.
We didn't charge the kids for training or matches, just an annual registration payment of about £20.
We got kits, training gear, coats, hats etc sponsored by local businesses to survive and dug into our own pockets on many occasions too.

We took the team to Old Trafford, Bournemouth, Walsall, Watford and Spurs so they could experience live football. Many of our players had never been to a live match until we took them.

Every week we had to clear dog crap off of the pitches before we could play and quite often swept water away from the goalmouth to get the game on.

At my kids school, I set up an after school football club for any kid that wanted to play. Within weeks, I had over a hundred showing up and had to get a few parents, teachers and even the caretaker to help out.
We started a girls team and also found a way to include a few kids with physical handicaps in unofficial schools matches.
The red tape I had to cut through was ludicrous, but the results were very rewarding.

I'm not special for doing this......there are thousands of people doing it weekly and getting kids playing football.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Talk Sport and an ex top flight player shared a story from when he was involved at a league club in a marketing role.
The club were getting gates of around 3,000 per home game so the ex player had an idea.
Give 1,000 free tickets to kids on the proviso that they are accompanied by an adult who would be charged a fiver.
The gate would go up by 2,000, matchday revenue would increase through sales of merchandise and food etc, but most important of all, the future fan base would potentially be turning up.
The club refused this idea as it would mean taking on extra stewards on match day!!
Talk about short sighted!!

Money HAS to be put into grass roots football.
Gordon Taylor's wage is unbelievable, but the £700k bonus astounds me!
Sky do put money in, but not enough given the figures they turn over and I always feel that their involvement is manufactured for the cameras.
A percentage of all transfer fees in this country is a no brainer. With all the cash swashing around at the moment, 1% or 2% would not impact the deal for the clubs, but make a huge difference at grass roots level.

I could go on, and on, but I'll stop now.

Well done Pete on highlighting this.
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Pete’s Picture Palace
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Joined: 19 Feb 2013
Posts: 4215
Location: Wallington Surrey

PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:52 am 
Post subject: Re: SAVING GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL - petition etc
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Pete’s Picture Palace wrote:
Please click here to sign the petition

https://twitter.com/savegrassroots?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Neville Southall is a frequent Twitterer on this (and other) topics. Join him.

Now read on:-

Gordon Taylor got £2.2m last year, including a huge bonus, and a flash office, and buys Lowry paintings...... and what does he give to grass roots football? By the way, he's 73 years old. Shouldn't he retire?

The annual PFA budget is £17m and they allocated just £100,000 to head injuries and Alzheimers research over 5 years. That's £20,000 a year or 0.01% of budget. I'm sure Ryan Mason would be impressed with that.

Alexis Sanchez gets £400,000 per week and doesn't pay his tax bills allegedly. What does he give to grass roots football in the UK? I have no idea how much he donates in his native Chile. I'm not holding my breath.

Sky TV & BT Sport have spent £4.6bn to cover Premier League football for the next 3 seasons. What do they give to grass roots football?

I could go on but I'm sure you get my drift. Please sign that petition and force the powers-that-be to take action. What they don't seem to realise is that without Grass Roots Football, there will be no British players in the Premier League in 10-20 years' time. A few pennies here and there is not enough (FA gave "a record" £260 million over 5 years for instance when you consider how much they were paid by Sky & BT). It's a drop in the ocean.

On the Ryan Mason thread, you may have read my piece about Sutton United's 3G pitch (or 4G, I'm not actually sure how many G it is).

But basically the EFL have told them that if they get promoted to the Football League at the end of this season, and if they don't rip up their 3/4G pitch and install grass and have a pitch at least as good as Spotland, they will be relegated by 2 levels to the Vanarama South. The same applies to Bromley and Maidstone United.

Sutton invested £500,000 in their pitch. They don't have postponements, they use it 24/7 for training, kids, concerts, for other clubs to use (eg Sutton Common Rovers of the Combined Counties League Premier Div), and their players don't get burns on sliding tackles, the bounce is true, you don't even think about the pitch when watching a game. Ask Arsene.

It's the way forward. And the EFL will set them 2 steps and many £££ back.

It's all connected. Our game is run by money-grabbing dinosaurs.

We here on FPC are football lovers. We are allowing it to die in front of our very eyes. The least we can do is sign that petition so that someone else might do something about it.

I've said my piece. Some of you guys probably know more than me about aspects of this and may be active already, and if so I thank and congratulate you.

And I thank you all for your attention.

Scouse



WHOOPS - my maths was awry here - never my strong point... it's 1.176%. Sorry PFA.
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Fishy



Joined: 07 Jun 2011
Posts: 1217

PostPosted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:42 pm 
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Just signed it Pete.

Needs quite a few more signatures to get to the 100,000 mark.............
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45/6 Newport; Swansea; Leicester.
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49/0 Walsall; Exeter.
50/1 Port Vale.
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