Alan Wright first stepped foot into Bovingdon Football Club
as a six-year-old boy who wanted to play football with his friends. 20 years on
and Wright now finds himself as Vice Chairman of the Hertfordshire village
football club.
When asked about the main issues he and his committee face
trying to run the club, the word that keeps being repeated is 'funding'. Like
most grassroots football teams, Wright doesn’t receive a wage and says: “I
often say running this football club is like having a full time job. We could
easily employ 15 people to do the jobs that have to be done. Washing the kits,
marking the lines, cutting the grass. There are millions and millions of
different jobs to do”
Bovingdon’s two main pitches used for their three senior
football teams and 11-a-side junior games have seen better days. When it rains
the pitches become waterlogged, muddy and are not nice surfaces to play
football on. This is something that Vice
Chairman Wright feels is causing a decrease in the number of people wanting to
play the sport. He feels that “better facilities would make a big
difference”. Despite the Football
Association pledging to fund 8 million pounds to have more than 2000 better
grass pitches by 2019, that doesn’t help Bovingdon or any teams in the area as
they are unlikely to see any of this money. Yes, The FA funding for better
pitches does help the game but it doesn’t particularly help the clubs who have
to suffer playing on their own mud baths season after season.
A recent survey found that between 2010 and 2016, there has
been an 18% decrease in the number of people participating in adult football
once a month and Wright mentions how “some of mates who were the best players
have no interest in the game anymore” he highlights the fact that: “there is so
much more to do” at the time he was a player. Social media plays a large role
in society today, and modern trends show that people can socialise by using
their phones, rather than through playing football. He recalls that when he
played “being in the football dressing room was when you would catch up with
your mates, now you can talk to 10 people at the same time on social media”.
Surely now is the time for The FA and Premier League to fund and do everything
in their power to keep people playing football.
At Bovingdon, their recently self-funded (of course!)
clubhouse has had a bar put in, as well as the clubhouse being given a slight
refurbishment. This is something Wright feels is making a huge difference to
both the clubs finances and the community as a whole. He adds: “our bar is our
key asset, we host parties and events which pumps vital funds into the club.”
Something you instantly feel when you talk to anyone at the football club is
the passion for the community and Wright feels the village "is completely
better off for having a football club.”
Wright and his committee at the football club feel very
passionate about funding. As you walk round the football club and see the
showers and the changing room, you can understand why. Wright feels more needs
to be done to support football clubs like Bovingdon and in his view, the buck
starts at the Premier League and The FA. He says “Finance and funding is
difficult in grassroots football, if you think about the mega rich Premier League
and how much money there is at the top of the game, I think not enough filters
down to the lower end. Without grassroots football there isn’t any football at
the top end”. Clubs like Bovingdon can apply for grants from The FA, but it is
a lot less than anyone could have imagined. Bovingdon “hasn’t had a grant of
over £500 in the last 20 years”. Many clubs have no way of sourcing extra
income; the Green Army are lucky in a sense that their bar just about helps
them break even every season.
Away from the lack of funding, Bovingdon have a lot of
exciting things happening at the junior level of the game. They have former
Premier League defender Michael Duberry as one of their junior coaches
something that Wright feels is “great for the kids and is benefitting the club
in the number of players who want to play for Bovingdon”. The message from
Wright is clear on junior football at Green Lane: “The more we can invest in
the junior team the more we can improve the senior side.”
My chat with Wright is conducted in the home dressing room.
It's cold, earie and is a far cry away from the dressing rooms at the top of
the game. Just six miles away is Vicarage Road, the home of Watford Football
Club, where the facilities are nothing short of incredible. Wright believes
Premier League clubs should do more for clubs like Bovingdon stating: “Rather
than us struggling whilst the mega rich get even richer, they could mandate
that a certain amount of money should be shared to the Premier League clubs
local teams.” Grassroots football enthusiast William Potter agrees with Wright,
and feels it’s time for the Premier League to take some responsibility: "Premier League should each provide £5 million each year to grassroots football in the UK, so £100 million is given each as a spread to the County Associations to feed to clubs at grassroots level."
Despite all the issues with funding, Wright and his team will continue to run this small village football club with immense pride and passion. Now that is something that will never leave our sport.
By Adam Rowe
