Big Hearts to pump life into grassroots football

HEARTS have agreed a three-year partnership with the Scottish Football Association to expand football participation across Edinburgh and are aiming to attract 15,000 people to a range of programmes.

The Big Hearts Community Trust will help the SFA deliver club development courses, schools’ programmes, player pathway events and coach education. Big Hearts will work with local clubs, community groups and schools as part of the SFA’s Scotland United 2020 Vision campaign.

Big Hearts chief executive Alan White said: “Our commitment as part of the relaunch of Big Hearts was to see a dramatically enhanced grassroots football programme, and there is little doubt that our formal partnership with the Scottish FA will allow us to deliver on our 15,000 target for participants in each year of the agreement.

“The Scottish FA’s Scotland United 2020 strategy puts grassroots football and ultimately performance at the heart of their strategy. We are delighted that Big Hearts is coming on board to lead football in the Capital at such an important time.”

Big Hearts will work with thousands of children and adults to help grow the game through 3600 hours of quality coaching plus activities for young children and football camps during term time and school holidays.

Older children will benefit from the Wiseman Dairy’s Street Football project and the Bank of Scotland Midnight League programme.

The coach education project has an initial target of more than 200 adults per year across SFA children’s courses, youth courses and in-service events each year. All programmes will be co-funded by the SFA and Big Hearts.