A CHURCH is hoping to give football-friendly families a hand by offering them an alternative to pubs and bars.

Billericay Baptist Church, in Perry Street, Billericay, is inviting people to watch England matches on its huge projector screen for the remainder of the tournament.

Entry is free and the move is a bid to create a more child-friendly option for football-mad residents, where anyone drinking booze will be given the red card.

The screen is usually used for the church’s congregation to read hymn lyrics during services, doing away with the need for hymn books.

But staff thought they could put it to good use for the World Cup.

Gary Bott, youth work director at the church, said: “It’s a huge screen and we have showed some football matches up there before, so we really wanted to open it up for people and families in the community.

“The only places you can go to watch the matches in large groups of people is normally the pubs, but we felt not everyone wants to go to the pub.

“We supply tea and coffee but we don’t have any alcohol in the church. You can go down the pub if you want a beer, because we want it to be a nice, fun and family friendly atmosphere.”

The church showed the 1-1 against the USA on Saturday.

Dozens of people came to watch it, even devouring slices of an England themed cake made by Mr Bott’s mum, Helen.

Mr Bott added that visitors could come to the church from around 7pm this Friday, for the 7.30pm kick off between England and Algeria.

The church is only showing the England matches.