For some time, we had been unable to train at our own ground because, around three years ago, the floodlights were condemned as unsafe.
Since then the club has been attempting to fundraise to replace the floodlight poles, the lights themselves and the cost of a professional electrician to bring it all together – all-in-all around £2,000 which is a huge amount for a village club.
But then we hit another snag because before attempting to finance the project, we had to fundraise to purchase a new set of goalposts.
We reached the stage where we desperately want to complete the project in time for the new season but there was no way that we could put the final piece of the jigsaw in place because while having to cover our financial needs towards starting the new season, we then didn’t have the resources to fund the electrical work.
The money was raised for the poles and lights, but we still needed to find funds to complete the electrical work. The electrical work was £495, but it might as well have been £495,000 because there was no way we could raise that amount of money having already gathered £1,400 towards the cost.
It was then that I saw an article in a regional newspaper with Cornwall FA’s Grace Dent telling clubs that time was nearly up for submitting applications for the small grant awards.
We have not always been lucky with grant awards in the past because our ground is shared with the cricket club and owned by the parish council, but I gave Grace a call to get some more details and she told me that I had nothing to lose and to get my application in.
To be honest, I didn’t think we had much of a chance of obtaining a grant because the scheme was heavily oversubscribed and then when the date arrived for finding out whether we had been successful, the decision had been delayed. I had sort of dismissed any hope at that point, but a couple of weeks later I had an email to say that our application had been successful and it was as if we had won the lottery. I just couldn’t believe it.
To receive that type of grant is fantastic, but also the help and encouragement we received from the Cornwall FA was first class.
Nothing was too much trouble and now our training area for two teams is up and running thanks to the Cornwall FA, without whose help this might not have happened for another 12 months.
