Football is a world wide loved sport, players and fans enjoying watching and playing ‘the beautiful game’ across all ability levels and at every age. We are very lucky as a football club to have suitable kit for all our teams and our partnership with Nike means that we have access to the highest quality equipment and teamwear.
As a result of having regular new kit, we build up a small surplus every year which gets stored away. 2 years ago, 2 of our coaches, Ibra Jagne and Clint Ricketts, were talking about the plight of children and young adults from The Gambia who struggled to obtain suitable kit for their teams. They both acknowledged that our club had lots of surplus kit and they decided to do all that they could to help as Ibra himself grew up in The Gambia before a successful professional football career.
Clint spoke to the club and it was agreed that all surplus kit would be donated to this worthwhile cause, with Clint then contacting other clubs, the Wiltshire FA and club kit supplier Kitlocker and as a result over time 25 boxes of football kit, boots, balls and even a couple of goals were packed up ready to be sent.
Having now collected this vast amount of kit, we now needed to raise the hundreds of pounds it would take to get the boxes shipped the 1000’s of mile to The Gambia. After a successful appeal across social media and numerous phone calls, just over £700.00 was raised to cover the cost of shipping from generous donations from parents, FC Abbey Meads, REPerformance and OEP Construction.
We are pleased to say that the kit was dispatched and was scheduled to arrive in The Gambia in late March 2021. Subject to covid restrictions, Ibra and Clint are hoping to meet up with the shipment and distribute it to teams in The Gambia.
All at FC Abbey Meads pass on our thanks and congratulations for organising such a mammoth task and we feel proud that we have helped to spread love of the game to others across the world.
We look forward to hearing updates as and when Ibra and Clint are able to do so.