AS AN old-fashioned centre-forward who scored twice on his only appearance at Anfield for Liverpool Reserves, Kenny Saunders was a bit of a hero in his day, banging them in regularly for a host of Non-League clubs.
Now the 49-year-old – who numbers Kirkby Town (later known as Knowsley United), Marine, Warrington Town, Mossley, Bangor City and Caernarfon among his former teams before retiring 17 years ago – is turning into even more of a champion for the grass-roots game.
You may have seen the twitter account ‘SaveGrassRootsFooty’, or maybe the e-petition launched by Saunders and Bolton MP David Crausby to get the government to ‘Force the Premier League to back grass-roots football‘ by making them give 7.5 per cent of the latest combined £5bn deal for domestic and overseas TV rights back to support the game when local councils are cutting theirs.
More than 5,300 of us have, so if you haven’t, get online and add your cyber signature. If the petition gets 100,000, it will be debated in parliament.
Saunders reckons it will snowball and reach up to 300,000. And he’s got previous of making things happen.
Saunders coaches 135 five and six-year-olds every Saturday for Woolton Football Club. With 55 teams, they are one of the top ten FA Community Charter Standard clubs in the country.
Coaching
I take my four-year-old boy to football coaching sessions at Baldock Town‘s old ground, now owned by my former club Hitchin Town. There are more trips to the toilet than goals are scored in that hour spent down at Norton Road, I can assure you.
Up on Saunders’ patch in Liverpool, Woolton’s kids don’t even have a bog at their facility. Seriously. The potential stars of the 2030 World Cup (Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard hail from these parts, of course) do not have a pot to pee in.
And it’s 2013! “I just enquired to the FA about where we were in the top ten and said it was fantastic, but how can you give us community charter standard status when our facilities are so bad we haven’t even got a toilet for the kids to use?” says Saunders. “I’ve been on a mission since then and it’s not about Woolton Football Club.
“We’re letting our kids down in this country because football should be free – or at least minimum cost – and the Premier League should be remembering where all those players started.”
Saunders’ previous came just before Christmas when, outraged by Sefton Borough Council’s proposal to increase mini-soccer pitch hire from £180 a year to £600, and 11-a-side from £550 to £1,550, he took drastic action.
“I did something I regret to this day,” says Saunders, who has never taken a penny for coaching.
“I stopped 9,000 kids from playing football for one Saturday and got them, their mums and their dads to a demonstration. A week later I got a call saying that for the first time in 100 years the council had ripped up consultation papers, and the fees were staying the same.”
Hopefully the latest campaign will be equally successful. It should be noted that the Premier League do give away £189m each year, although much of that is in solidarity payments to the Football League and Conference.
They give £45m each year to fund ‘Creating Chances’ projects in local communities, and £12m to the Football Foundation (down from £20m) to split between grass-roots facilities and the Football Stadia Improvement Fund.
Survive
They also give £800,000 each season to the Football Conference Trust where the 68 Blue Square clubs can apply for grants for projects in their local communities.
But as Northern Premier League chief Mark Harris said on these pages last summer, there isn’t anything to help the lower Non-League and amateur game from Steps 3 to 7 survive, let alone flourish. Harris, also chairman of Witton Albion, called it: “The black hole of the football economy.”
Saunders sums the food chain up perfectly: “I was looking at the midweek Non-League results the other day and I see attendances of 150 here, 68 there. If grass-roots football dies, Non-League dies. If Non-League dies, the Football League will and then we’re left with just the Premier League.
“I’m doing this because I want my grandchildren to have better facilities to play football in years to come than I did 40-odd years ago. They are no better now than then. If they stay in the game they will keep friends for life, like I have from my time in Non-League.”
Go to epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46134 and get signing to ‘SaveGrassRootsFooty’!
If you’re on twitter, you can follow Kenny – https://twitter.com/kenny9saunders and the Save Grass Roots campaign – https://twitter.com/savegrassroots
