A football charity which raises money to support young people in the sport is looking to help Dunfermline children.
Soccer4Children helps youngsters with the cost of football kits, fees, and any other costs that come with playing the sport.
It raises money through football team Newton Heath FC, which plays charity matches against other teams and organisations. It started in Edinburgh, but Dean Philp, director of Soccer4Children, is hoping to also bring it to Dunfermline now that he lives in the city.
Dean said: “I started this up years ago when my dad was dying, just as a way of saying thank you to the Maggie's Centre in Edinburgh, so my dad was diagnosed with leukaemia and we wanted to give something back to the staff at Maggie’s.
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“So they’re not allowed to take gifts to themselves, so we said, look can we help out by donating money to the charity and it kind of stemmed from there.
“We kind of thought after helping four or five different charities that meant something to us, we knew that they were getting help from other places, so we thought we’ll put something back into football, and that’s when we came up with the idea of helping kids.”
Soccer4Children contact schools and certain clubs to see if they can help in any way, and sometimes parents will come forward to ask for support for their child’s football needs.
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“Nobody’s got money at the moment, that’s the thing. All the prices are going up, petrol, gas and electricity, mortgages have gone up so, I think it’s something that’s going to be there for many years to come. There’s always going to be people needing help.
“There’s lots of children that go without because parents just can’t afford it anymore,” Dean commented.
Dean and Soccer4Children are currently trying to arrange a game between Dunfermline and Raith fans, and they are looking for fans to come forward and be a part of the match. He is also in the process of starting up a new team called Duloch United. He plans for the team to join the Fife league and to run fundraisers and tournaments.
Newton Heath are always looking to play new teams to raise money for their cause.
Dean added: “If any organisations would like to play us, we’d be open to try and get a game arranged.
“We’ve played Police Scotland, we’ve played Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of New York in Edinburgh. We’d be open for any team or any organisation to come forward and play us and to help us raise money.”
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