The Community Trust recently ran their first schools football tournament of the academic year and they are looking to put some more tournaments on in the coming months.
Rob Stevenson, who was in charge of organising the tournament, said: “It’s been great. We’re doing a tournament to find a team to represent Chesterfield FC in the future.
“We’ve had an incredible number of schools turn up, with nine different schools taking part. I’m super happy with that considering it’s our first one of the year.
“We’ve even been able to help our schools with transport this year which has really boosted numbers.”
The tournament was an all-girls competition with the schools taking part in a group stage and then knockout rounds, with Hasland Juniors winning the tournament overall.
On the all-girls factor, Rob said: “It’s absolutely massive that we put football tournaments on for girls.
“It’s essential for me, I think it’s so important and I’m so happy that so many girls have turned up to play.
“Incredibly, some of these girls have never played football before and you wouldn’t be able to tell. It’s really great for the Trust and the club to host these types of events.
“The smiles on their faces are so big, they’ve been having so much fun and they really do look like they’re enjoying themselves.
“I think it’s vital for us to provide the girls of Chesterfield with opportunities to play football and enjoy competition within sport.”
Rob also touched on the future plans for girls within the club, adding: “With so many girls here, we can really start to look at developing more girls’ teams.
“We haven’t really had a young girls set-up in our academy yet, so this is our chance to capitalise on this.
“We want more girls teams and we want to use this as our starting point. It’s vitally important for us to provide these opportunities.
“Long-term we want to have many successful women’s teams at all age groups and this really is our chance to get this started. It will all benefit the club in the long run.”
For more information on how to get involved with the Trust, or how to get your school involved, please email: robert.stevenson@spireitestrust.org.uk.
