New community sports venture with a goal to kick-start grassroots football

Sadly, many budding soccer stars never play competitively because their parents can't afford the kit, and community football teams struggle to buy essentials such as goalposts.

Two Yorkshire entrepreneurs would like to change all that.

Jamie Tosh and Simon Brown have given up lucrative careers to set up Leeds-based Kick4Change, a community interest company that sells cut-price football boots. At least 50 per cent of the profits are re-invested in schools, small sports groups and good causes.

The company has a wider social goal. It aims to ensure that all parents can provide their child with the sports clothing they need to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Founding partner Mr Brown said: "We wanted to create a vehicle that allows profits from a sports brand to be passed back into the community. Too often, parents are faced with having to buy really expensive sporting equipment.

"The idea started on the playing fields of Yorkshire. My business partner, Jamie, was providing football coaching to 20 children and they didn't have enough cones and balls.

"Jamie looked at the kids participating and worked out that the total net spend on equipment was about 2,000 and not one penny of that was finding its way back into the grassroots game.

"We thought that there must be a way of creating a sporting brand that can act as a vehicle to get money back into the game."

Mr Brown and Mr Tosh decided to create a business that would raise funds from the sale of its 4sport branded products.

"We did a lot of market research, talking to parents, teachers and kids, said Mr Brown.

"All the feedback said there was definitely a role for this. This laid the foundations for the business.

"One of the first people we approached was an organisation called Keyfund Yorkshire who recognised the potential of the business and awarded us seedcorn funding."

The company was founded in the summer of 2009, when the economy was suffering its worst slump in a generation.

"Many people have said we must have been mad, giving up relatively safe jobs at the start of a recession to do something like this," Mr Brown recalled.

But if the business can survive a recession, Mr Brown believes it has a great chance of success when the economy recovers.

He added: "I've held a number of senior commercial positions with food manufacturers, selling into the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons. Jamie has an operational background working for the NHS and some private sector organisations in IT and project management.

"The biggest challenge was getting the funding and convincing people that this was a venture worth backing. The next big challenge is raising brand awareness.

"We're looking for investment to help with the growth of the business. Over the next few years, we would like to become employers. We want to build relationships with schools and grassroots clubs.

"The other key thing is to engage with corporate organisations. Given the pathetic performance of England in the World Cup there's a real dearth of investment into the grassroots game.

"One of the quick wins a corporate organisation could achieve is to sponsor some of our boots and provide them as a donation to a local football club or a league or a community."

With investment, Mr Brown believes Kick4change could start to hire sales people and administrators.

He added: "There are 5.8 million children of primary-school age in the UK. That's really our market.

"The economic situation is starting to bite and too many people can't afford the equipment just to participate in PE or an after-school club."

Mr Brown said he wanted to make a football boot that appealed to everybody.

He added: "We're working with a number of football clubs around Yorkshire. We're also working with schools who recognise that this is something they can offer to their parents. It can become an item on the uniform list."

Kick 4 change

Leeds-based Kick4change is a Community Interest Company (CIC), which has recently created its first product, a football boot for small children which sells for 14.99 to consumers or 12 to corporates who want their branding on the boot.

CICs are enterprises that provide some form of benefit for the community.

Registration of a company as a CIC has to be approved by a regulator who has a monitoring and enforcement role.

The business plans to become a community vehicle that will raise significant funds from the sale of its 4sport branded products. It will donate half of its profits back to schools and small sports clubs who register with the company, and whose parents buy the products.

The remaining profits will go into an "asset lock", to be used for investing in grassroots sports and good causes.

Co-founder Simon Brown said: "We invest all of our profits back into the areas that need them the most. This level of donation could only be achieved by a company with a social enterprise status and associated values."