| Rugby Town Junior Football Club |
This page is part of the archive of community profiles and was written in March 2003.
Meet the second local community group to be featured on the Warwickshire Web as part of a regular series of website articles - Rugby Town Junior Football Club (RTJFC).
The club was formed in 1994 with just one team, but has evolved into one of the most successful junior football clubs in the country, being nationally recognised as the FA Charter Standard Club of the Year 2001/2002 with a total of 41 teams in the 2002/3 season. In 2003, the club was awarded the highest Football Association award – the FA Charter Standard Community Club. |
| The voluntary organisation provides organised football for approximately 500 people in a safe and friendly environment in and around the Rugby area. Seventy trained volunteers provide all these players with top quality coaching. The club has age groups ranging from under-16s to under-18s and provides mini-soccer for under-7s to under-10s. It also provides 11-a-side soccer for under-11s to Youth level. The club has also recently started a Disabled Football Team. |
The Future of the Club – The Community Sports Facility
RTJFC has been working on a project that will allow all sectors of the community, particularly children, the opportunity to play football in a safe and friendly environment. The club is committed to actively seek the participation of ethnic minorities, children with learning difficulties, disabled groups, girls and women’s football, schools and after school clubs and other sporting organisations from the local community.
The proposed facility will benefit the entire community by providing seven mini-soccer pitches, two intermediate pitches and two full size pitches, of which one will be floodlit. The new pavilion will include eight changing rooms, teaching rooms, a first aid / treatment room, disabled access and a social area. Community groups including ethnic minorities, disabled groups, girls’ football, other local football clubs and other sporting clubs, including cricket, will be encouraged to use the facility. |
Football coaching and first aid courses will also be run from the venue which is essential to accommodate the club’s annual membership which expands by around 60 every year with a new intake of under-6s. With the club currently training and playing at 16 different locations throughout Rugby, a solid base is essential to reduce costs and provide the necessary unity and stability the club requires to progress further.
Club secretary Brian Crinigan said: “There are no other facilities of this nature within the Rugby area and with the steady increase of the population - 87,000 from the last census - these facilities will be required to provide a much needed service."
“Also, football training courses and first aid courses, plus the training of referees, has previously had to be done outside the borough, so the new facility will provide a much needed educational venue for all to use.”
For more information about the club and its activities, please visit their website at www.rugbytownfc.co.uk |