12:13pm Tuesday 16th March 2010
By Chris Phillips
SOUTHEND United’s Community and Educational Trust have won The Football Foundation Community Club of the Year award at the 2010 Football League Awards.
The club received the award at a gala dinner at Grosvenor House, in Park Lane, London, on Sunday evening in front of 900 guests from clubs, sponsors and the football industry.
And the trust’s Steve Goodsell was delighted to see all his team’s efforts rewarded.
“It’s a big fillip to us to get the award, especially with things not going so well on the pitch at the moment,” said Goodsell.
“The award will give everyone at the club a boost and it’s just reward for a lot of hard work over the four years that we’ve spent turning what was a fairly typical Football in the Community scheme into a really high quality community facility offering programmes for people aged from four to 94.”
The Shrimpers have produced a broad range of activities for their community over the past year with more than 30 different schemes and projects.
During 2009 more than 40,000 people took part in the various initiatives delivered by the trust, covering all ages.
The trust’s wide range of activities is capped by their flagship Goals project which has produced great results and led to a nomination for Best Project by a Professional Sports Team category at the 2009 Beyond Sport Awards.
As well as being concerned about the health and education of the participants of the schemes, the trust has also offered additional training and development support for their employees.
Examples of such training include makaton sign language, time and project management, IT skills and general sports and fitness qualifications.
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