Everyone at Twickenham Tigers Football Club was overjoyed that England’s women won Euro 2022 and we congratulate the team upon their magnificent success. This came about as a direct result of significant investment in the women’s game and we are ready to support the change in society that was demanded by Sarina Wiegman and the English Football Association. We wait with particular eagerness to find out how this will be adopted in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames where the lack of adequate sporting facilities for children to engage with sport is falling massively short of demand.
As a growing football club, we try to never turn away new enquirers whether they be boys or girls, as we seek to provide every child with the opportunity to play football, but we face ever increasing challenges that include:
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Whilst there are plenty of spacious golf courses for adults in the Borough, there is a completely inadequate number of facilities for youth clubs to engage children in sport, train and play matches. Our club has been forced out of the Borough to find training facilities, whilst clubs from other parts of the Borough come to Twickenham and fight over the scraps provided by the local authority because they have similar problems.
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Minimal floodlit training facilities meaning that training between October and March becomes impossible.
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Costs of training facilities going through the roof as the few facility providers we have, realise their opportunities to maximise profits and thereby make sport unaffordable to parents struggling in the current financial climate.
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Clubs being advised to share facilities when they are already over-subscribed or in inadequate condition for multiple participation.
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With facilities already fully booked, we have nowhere for new teams to train in the winter, so how could we increase girls participation without help?
Although this is a Borough that prides itself on current levels of sporting participation, we doubt whether that will continue if things do not change. We call upon our local authority to grab this opportunity and engage with sports clubs to:
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Provide more affordable training facilities for clubs across the whole Borough by prioritising the identification of derelict or disused sites that could be made available and supporting clubs to grow.
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Build more floodlit 4G surfaces so children and adults can continue to play during winter months.
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Engage with youth sports clubs through a communication forum that enables us to work together to address this overwhelming issue.
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Encourage and support schools to open up their facilities and engage with sports clubs, at affordable prices which is even more important in current times.
We look forward to hearing from our Council leaders how they plan to seize this opportunity to encourage girls to participate in football and keep children in the Borough happy and active.
