Moatsiders grant helps them to serve their community
A grant from the Pitching In Trident Community Foundation will help Merstham to provide football sessions for neurodiverse young people
By Mohamed Hamza
A father’s love is inspiring Merstham FC to ensure football can be enjoyed by all- after they landed a cash boost.
The Moatsiders were recently successful in receiving funding from league sponsors Pitching In’s Trident Community Foundation, which offers money to clubs at Step 3 and 4 of the non-league pyramid to establish new or grow existing community projects. And after witnessing first-hand how the sport can change lives, Merstham club director Jamie Lowe hopes to use the grant to provide football sessions for neurodiverse young people and help support their mental health.
“There’s a massive focus on people’s mental health at the moment and correctly so,” said dad-of-two Lowe.
“There’s a lot more understood about people’s mental health at the moment than there has been in the past, and tying into that is youngsters with special needs ,so it’s trying to support the community by supporting them through the best way we can, through football.
If I can reference the SEN specifically, I’ve got a 14-year-old son who is autistic, and I’ve seen how he struggles to interact and socialise.
He comes to the football, but you can see he’s uncomfortable because it can be quite a noisy environment. It got me thinking that there are probably a lot of children out there who want to get involved but probably can’t.
I went to see East Surrey Hawks in Reigate just to see how it all gets set up- and because they have a SEN group down there. I walked away from that thinking I want to do that.
Just to see the look on their faces and the parents’ faces you can see there was relief there and there’s no doubt that’ll help their social interaction going forward and help them understand they’re not on their own.”
The Trident Community Foundation has awarded more than £500,000 to clubs since its inception in 2020, with beneficiaries using the money to support all kinds of projects such as walking football, disability football, and women’s and girls’ football programmes.
And Lowe expressed his gratitude to the grant for allowing the Pitching In Isthmian League side to put their plans into action and help expand their existing ties with local residents.
He added: “Everybody’s on a shoestring with the economic crisis and with Christmas coming up. My time’s given up for free, which isn’t a problem, it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to do it so it. To have the funding in place so we can continue to provide the services for people who are struggling helps grease the wheels a little bit to help make it more accessible.
As a grassroots football team invested in the community we’ll do all that we can but it’s always great to get extra funding to do a little bit more to support those people.”
