SHINFIELD RANGERS FC – 42 YEARS OF FOOTBALL IN THE COMMUNITY
Shinfield Rangers FC has achieved the Football Association’s highest accolade in grassroots football by being awarded Charter Standard Community Club status. This award recognises the outstanding achievements of the volunteer managers, coaches and assistants who run our children’s and men’s squads. It will help us to expand the work we do to provide a safe, fun and educational environment for boys and girls and enable them to develop their confidence, improve fitness and enjoy playing football. This award also enables us to broaden our work within the schools cluster and the wider community with our football skills programme being rolled out across the region.
The Community Club status is the pinnacle of the FA Charter Standard pyramid with only a few clubs holding the award nationally. For example, of the 850+ clubs in the Berks & Bucks FA, only 17 have been awarded this special status. It’s a kite mark that demonstrates high standards in all we do combined with excellent organisation and planning. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the hard work and long hours spent by Dr. Raymond Barclay in ensuring that our submission to the FA for this award was correct in every detail – this was a significant amount of work as our future planning for the club involves many different stakeholders in Shinfield Parish and beyond.
As a club we have a clear set of values, and the strength of the club is in adhering to those values. All of our volunteer coaches love to see their teams winning, but first and foremost, boys and girls are welcomed into the club so they can enjoy football and improve the standard of their own game. Anyone who wants to play is always welcome to join, regardless of ability or experience. This will always be our philosophy ad I would like to extend an invitation to all the children living in our community to come and take part – summer is coming and we’ll be setting up additional teams across all age groups for both boys and girls, U7 through to U16.
On this subject, I am delighted to report that on Saturday 1st March, our girls U14 team won a very close Cup semi-final against Sandhurst FC and have progressed to the Final. I was privileged to watch them play the semi-final and the high standard of football on show was genuinely impressive.
Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the bravery of Ben Gill, one of our Rangers U12 players. Ben suffered a bad injury while playing for the U12 team recently and after receiving hospital treatment will out of action for a couple of months. Ben is a perfect example of the type of child we have playing for the club – he always works hard, never stops running, is keen to learn and represents Shinfield Rangers with pride. I know that his coach Will Manning and all his team mates will miss him greatly over the next few weeks, so on behalf of the whole club I would like to send our best wishes to Ben and his family.
James A. Roth
Chairman – Shinfield Rangers FC
www.shinfieldrangersfc.com