In the fifth in our series of articles reviewing the progress the Foxes Trust has made against it’s originally declared aims, we focus on the community aspects
Aim – To strengthen the bonds between Leicester City Football Club and the community which it serves and to represent the interests of the community in the running of the club.
Aim – To promote, develop and respect the rights of members of the community served by the club and the Trust.
Review – The Trust initially focused on the other main aims and therefore has made less progress in this area than we would have liked. The Trust did play an active part in the annual LCFC Community Day, although that did not take place in summer 07.
Our own community activity has also been limited, we supported the Co-op Gala Day for a couple of years, while the annual 5 a side tournament held at the Dome at Belvoir Drive attracted good support each year, with the 07 tournament being ran with all proceeds going to the Radio Leicester Ruby Rainbows Appeal……
The club has always stated to us that it carries out numerous community activities without seeking to publicise, however the Trust firmly believes more could be done and has been trying to persuade the club to introduce a scheme “Adopt A Player”.
This scheme is based on each squad player’s season being followed by a different school, with the player visiting the school and the school being provided with tickets to a game. This model has been successfully used by Trusts at other clubs, with the benefits not only being educational, as they also delivered an increased number of young supporters following their local club rather than the large clubs via the TV.
The community served by the club of course includes the fan base and one area of concern raised by some fans was what they felt was the over zealous stewarding which on occasions appeared to penalise for getting behind the team.
The Trust was concerned that correct procedures weren’t being followed in all cases of fans being ejected from the ground, so following the Trust raising a series of questions over one particular instance and requesting a formal system was introduced, the club put in place an appeals procedure over 2 years ago which still applies.
Going Forward – The Trust continues to lobby for the Adopt A Player scheme to be taken up and with Milan Mandaric indicating that he was keen for players to go out into the community more, we will pursue this scheme for the next educational year.
The Trust is working with Supporters Direct and De Montfort University to pilot a Schools Literacy project. This will commence at schools in Oadby and Earl Shilton in the first quarter of 2008 and will utilise materials put together by John Hutchinson for the museum, be resourced by Trust members and include a stadium tour and attending a game, with pupils writing about various aspects of their experience. It is hoped than the scheme will expand to more schools as a second phase and the model then utilised by other clubs and their Trusts.
A further article will appear next week