Nantwich Town have announced the next exciting stage of the Club’s development with the launch of a range of initiatives and activities under the umbrella of Dabbers in the Community.
The plans include creating additional income streams to generate continuous investment in the Club’s facilities, as well as, at the same time, expanding the commitment to provide continuous support for the community.
Commenting on the launch, Chairman Jon Gold noted;
“Converting the stadium pitch from grass to 3G in 2023 has led to a significant growth in our community teams and activities; we now have a record number of 76 teams and over 1,000 registered players across our Club, including 250 female and 70 pan-disability footballers. We are now also hosting regular mini-tournaments, and every month continue to expand our recreational offering. We also provide coaching in 4 local schools and recently announced an exciting partnership with Brine Leas school to launch a football education academy starting in August 2025.
The FA produce figures to value community clubs, and we now provide £4.2 million per annum of value to the local community.
We are all focussed on building on this and are planning further ahead to ensure that our facilities continue to meet the high demands of all our players, parents and supporters.
Our original 3G pitch, the Applewood Arena, which has been in place for nearly 20 years and is the foundation which we built our valued community football offering on, is now in need of urgent refurbishment and in the near future, we need to upgrade the pitch, replace the boarding and netting and provide some covered viewing areas for parents and supporters. Once we have done this, we would also like to build a community hub with extra toilets, changing rooms and a carer/education room.”
Lyndon Wain, the Club’s Football Development Officer, who has overseen the growth in participants and teams noted,
“We have built something really special here at Nantwich and Dabbers in the Community is the next exciting phase of our development and will now allow us to socially strengthen our ties with local families and support those who need us most.”
As part of the launch, Dabbers in the Community will initially pledge the following to provide further support to those locally that need help and assistance.
- Provide 10 free football spaces annually within our teams for young boys and girls
- Allow access to our 3G pitches for 20 hours per week during the day for any local schools and small businesses
- Launch a Club-hosted and funded South Cheshire inter schools cup competition for boys’ and girls’ teams across Years 1 and 2 (ages 5-7) to help increase participation and access to football locally; with finals to be played on our stadium pitch
- Host a 2-hour free coffee and tea morning for over 65s every Friday morning at the Club
- Support 20 free season tickets for our first teams for disabled supporters.
- Fund and arrange an annual hospital Christmas visit with gifts for any children hospitalised over the festive period
- Carry out regular litter picking in and around the Club and the surrounding areas.
Jon Gold further commented,
“We have built a strong community volunteer workforce – we think it’s the largest in South Cheshire – and we sincerely hope that many of our coaches, players, parents and supporters to get behind this additional initiative.
As an example, Richard Embley, our volunteer Head of Female Football, has been working closely with Lyndon and the Board to develop the high-level concept and initial activity plan and will now support the Board in delivering these initial plans.”
Richard highlighted,
“Every member of the senior leadership at the Club have endorsed the concept, but they have also taken on a personal challenge in 2025 to help raise awareness and generate sponsorship funds for Dabbers in the Community; these include a sky dive, the 3 Peaks challenge, a cycle ride from Lands’ End to John O Groats, a long distance swim, and a 10k run. The more we raise, the more we can invest in our facilities and our community, and we are so well placed at the heart of Nantwich to allow the most vulnerable in our community to access these fantastic facilities.”
We are now looking for additional volunteers and local partners to help us with our plans. In this respect, please email [email protected] or call Richard on 07881 823773 to register your interest in donating, supporting, fundraising and helping us to organise events and activities.
