Welcome to our new website!
The Spartans Community Football Academy is a social enterprise based in North Edinburgh. When you rent a pitch, buy a coffee, send your kids to community football coaching or have a Birthday party with us you are helping us to deliver programmes for our local community including youth work, PE in schools and our alternative school. We aim to have positive social impact through the power of people and sport. We welcome you to our new website where we hope that you can get to know us and our work and find out about our services and facilities.
Welcome to our new website, we really hope you like it. More importantly we hope you find it informative and helpful.
Our new strap-line – "here for good" – captures who we are and our ongoing aspiration to be a valued and integral part of our community. Since The Academy opened in December 2008, the range of different programmes we have built and delivered has increased significantly.
It’s fair to say our old website failed to keep up and reflect our growth in some key areas, for example around education. Quite simply, it had become out of date. Time and time again when providing an overview of what we do and aspire to do in the future for others, the response I get is: “I had no idea The Academy did so much”. I’m confident our new website will give everyone a much greater understanding around who we are, what we do and the social impact created as a result of this work.
At the very heart of our organisation is a burning desire to play our part in helping others, to make a meaningful difference in the lives of local people. North Edinburgh is an area which is home to some of the most deprived areas in the country, e.g. Muirhouse which was recently ranked in the top 10 most deprived areas to live in the latest Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) statistics. Sadly, life can be a real challenge for many, for a whole host and variety of different reasons. In simple terms, we use the power of sport to engage with people of all ages. Using any profits made from trading and monies raised by our charity, we invest in delivering services to meet local community needs. For example, delivering free physical activity sessions for local primary schools and breakfast club on a Saturday morning.
I really hope you enjoy meeting and reading about various people associated with The Academy. It’s been an enjoyable experience creating our new website and taking the time to review our journey so far. Being clear about what we do and understanding how it can benefit others, has been hugely beneficial as we investigate and consider how we can evolve further and increase our social impact.
We have lots of exciting plans for the future. Please do keep an eye out for updates and news items on the website.
Douglas
#hereforgood
Douglas Samuel, CEO of The Spartans Community Football Academy