Harrogate school to unveil Premier League and FA-funded all weather pitch

Max Mills MBE will unveil the pitch. Picture: St John Fisher Catholic High School (s).

St John Fisher Catholic High School's new all-weather pitch will be officially opened this weekend.

The 3G pitch is set to be a key venue for the development of girls’ football participation in the area, with eight brand new female teams planned, including a women’s open-age side.

It will be used by students as well as partner clubs Harrogate Town AFC and Pannal Sports JFC.

The pitch has been funded by a grant from the Premier League and the FA Facilities Fund.

Staff members Max Mills MBE (pictured) and Mike Knowles will officially open the pitch this Saturday (October 7) with MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough Andrew Jones.

The grant has enabled the school to replace an existing grass pitch, prone to waterlogging, with a state-of-the-art third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP).

Both partner clubs previously had to travel for training due to a lack of adequate facilities in the area.

They will now base all of their training at the school pitch.

Partner club Harrogate Town AFC, who sit top of National League North, will also use the pitch to deliver community outreach programmes.

Since 2000, the Football Foundation Funding Partners’ investment has provided 520 grants worth £19.4m towards grassroots sports projects worth over £38.4m across the whole of West Riding.

Founded in 2000, the Football Foundation is the largest sports charity in the UK funded by the Premier League, The FA and Government, via Sport England.

It develops new and refurbished grassroots sports facilities in order to improve the quality and experience of playing sport at the grassroots level.

Since it was launched in 2000, the Foundation has awarded around 15,000 grants worth more than £580m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £800m – £1.4bn of investment into the grassroots game.