THEY have dreams of reaching the top as footballers but youngsters with a West Fife team have shown they’re tops when it comes to helping others.

In the run-up to Christmas, players with Dunfermline Athletic Girls’ under-7, under-9, under-11, under-13 and under-15 teams came together to show true festive spirit and help Dunfermline Foodbank.

The club, which has 95 girls playing football between those age groups out of a total of 130 players, collected a total of 95.4 kilogrammes of food, which Dunfermline Foodbank project manager, Sandra Beveridge, hailed as “amazing”.

Lynette Thomson, whose daughters Lauren, 11, and Hannah, five, both play for the club, began an under-7 team alongside a couple of other parents in October and it now has 15 kids aged five and six taking part.

While improving their skills off the pitch, they have helped improve lives off it, and Lynette explained: “We’re a local team and supporting the Dunfermline Foodbank I thought was quite a nice thing to do at this time of the year, especially this year when it’s hard for a lot of people.

“We put out a plea to parents of our teams suggesting it might be nice to donate non-essential items so that there was treats for the kids. We had almost 100 selection boxes, loads of sweets, biscuits, Christmas crackers, nice things as well as toiletries and your staple tins and things like that.

“I started it for the under-7s, under-9s and under-11s. I put it out for them but then one of the other coaches asked if we would like their team to be involved as well, so that’s the under-13s and 15s, so it got the five age groups involved, which was great because we got a lot more donations.

“I’m really glad we did it because to see it first-hand was quite scary to be honest. You think you’re hard done to until you see how other people live.

“Even if everyone brought just one thing – which they didn’t, people brought loads – it was just a small gesture and it’s going to help so many different families.

“I thought it was quite a good lesson for the kids as well because they are so young.”

For more information about Dunfermline Athletic Girls and Ladies Football Club – who also have teams at under-21 and senior level – you can find them on Facebook or visit their website at www.dalfc.com.