Over the past two months we have been in talks around extra funding for the girls’ sport and have some exciting news!
However, before announcing it, we wanted to send huge congratulations to Joydens Wood Junior School who won the Year Three-Four Champions Trophy, that was held at the club in October with 20 schools taking part.
We really wanted to do more with the younger year groups, this event has taken place over the past four years since Covid.
This term also saw the start of the Dartford Schools FA Cup, with schools playing their qualifying matches, some of which have taken place at the club. It all culminates in May with the finals’ day at Princes Park, we are really looking forward to hosting that again for a 6th year.
The big news for this month, however, is that Barclays have agreed to fund the girls’ community activity for three more years. We are the only club in Kent which gets this funding from Barclays, so it’s a real accolade.
Last year, they gave us the money which we used to deliver opportunities in schools. We applied again this year and they not only gave it to us again, but this time for the next three years! We have a proven track record in community projects – no other club in Kent offer what we do, community-wise.
We met all KPI’s set by funders, Education officer George Boulton went to St Georges Park to secure the funding, George is a great example of home-grown talent. George started activities at Dartford FC aged 8, he’s now 23, recently completed his teaching degree and is leading of education programme, George is a former pupil of Wentworth, Leigh Academy and also took part in the club’s academy set-up.
At present, 12 primary schools are involved, alongside one secondary school. The money will be used to fund activity with these schools with girls-only PE sessions and then four schools will receive girls-only after-school clubs. Julie Sutherland will lead the delivery.
Schools can also determine which girls want to go into volunteering or coaching and we will offer them support here at the club to do that.
We are looking for others to contribute additional funding so more than one secondary school can benefit from our expertise. If we are able to get someone to match the funding, we can support 24 primary schools and two secondary schools every year.
These are the conversations we are trying to have at the moment. We have been in talks with Dartford Borough Council about a few ideas with funding available in 2025. We want to provide free holiday camps and maybe even some evening provisions around the town centre.
We have also had some conversations with HSBC about some similar funding, Martin McCarthy has been a great help in identifying this funding opportunity.
We have lots of ideas, as a club, we aren’t guaranteed to get promoted this year so a lot of the new things we want to do are going to have to be funded through sponsors and other means, rather than the Premier League or the National League who have previously funded community activities.
It would be fantastic to report back that every primary school in Dartford has received some kind of support from DFC, we certainly want more girls active, Julie can then hopefully direct those girls to Dartford FC. Failing that, we are also very happy to point them in the best direction of a club local to them.
Our aim, which is in line with Barclays, is to get more girls playing and involved with the game and this funding helps secure that mission for the years ahead.
Looking to December, we have had some encouraging meetings with the AA about what we do and what we would like to do. It’s a great opportunity for the club and we will hopefully reveal more in the coming weeks!