£10k lottery windfall for wheelchair football club
A CITY wheelchair football club was awarded £10,000 to help more people get in to the sport.
The Big Lottery Fund granted the sum of money to the Glasgow Gladiators Powerchair Football Club which will use some of the cash to buy a specialised electric wheelchair used to play the sport.
The club will also use the money to hire out halls for training and games.
Welcoming the grant was Josh Millar, 17, from Wishaw who plays for the club.
He said: “I had to fundraise really hard to buy my own chair as they are more than £5,700 so I would really like to thank National Lottery players for giving more people the chance to play and take part in other sports.”
“I have been playing for nearly three years now and I love it.
“I have been a big football fan all my life and now I can play myself it gives me such a sense of freedom as well as fun.
Kenny Munro, the treasurer of the club said: “Having a new football powerchair means we can offer other wheelchair users the chance to come along and try the sport. These chairs are really expensive so it can be difficult for people to just have a go.”
The £10,000 will also help the club offer the Paralympic sport of Boccia and keep the club running for the next year.
The club, who recently reached the finals of the Evening Times’ Community Champions Awards, is one of 500 grassroots projects throughout Scotland to be awarded a segment of the £3.8million of total funding.
Martin Cawley, the Big Lottery Fund’s director for Scotland, said: “This is a fantastic amount of National Lottery money, nearly £4 million, going to hundreds of groups, run by local people actively working to make their communities better places to live.
“Meeting the Glasgow Gladiators players and seeing first-hand the enjoyment they get from their sport really brought home to me the difference that even the smallest amounts of money can make.”
A total of £503,851 from the Big Lottery Fund was awarded to groups and projects in Glasgow.