Sporting Hackney FC have been awarded a £3,000 grant from sports charity Football Foundation.
The club plan to use the grant to develop their youth squads further by forming an under-15s team.
Matt Brown, 50, chairman of Sporting Hackney said: “We’d like to spend the money over a course of three years and next season we’d like to introduce an under-15s squad. Our aim is to bridge the gap between youth and adult football, to give young players in Hackney a pathway from youth teams to a decent standard of adult football in their local area.”
Brown continued: “Amazingly, we are the highest standard adult club in the borough, whereas surrounding boroughs have pro clubs such as Arsenal, West Ham and Leyton Orient. If young players in Hackney don’t get picked up by professional clubs there are very few options for them locally. We hope to give them more options so fewer drop out of the game.”
As well as the adult teams, the club currently has two youth teams: an under-18 and an under-16 squad with around 30 and 50 players between them.
The club enjoyed success in May when their first team won the Premier Division of the Middlesex County Football League, which is 12 tiers below the Premier League.
Originally formed in 1986 as a young people’s’ unemployment project, the club plays on Hackney Marshes, the widely recognised home of grassroots football in the UK. With more than 60 football pitches, it has the greatest concentration of playing spaces compared to anywhere in Europe.
(Photo: Sporting Hackney)
