Kilwinning Sports Club

A case study in club development

Synopsis

Kilwinning Community Sports Club was established in 2000 to bring together a wide range of existing sports interests and clubs from across the town, many with a strong interest in football.  From a somewhat sceptical start, the new club has managed to lease a pre-existing area of pitches and changing rooms, and develop these over four years with financial support from the Lottery Sports Fund into a series of quality outdoor pitches, four multi-sport all-weather courts, a fitness suite, and facilities for other sports.  The club is now used by 33 youth and amateur football teams, with 60 qualified coaches, and around 2,000 local people.

Background

Kilwinning is a town in North Ayrshire with a population of over 16,000.  There are two secondary schools and seven primary schools; less than 10% of the adult population have higher or further education qualifications.  The town includes several areas that qualify for Social Inclusion Partnership status.

Sport – and particularly football – commands wide support across the town with a diversity of adult and junior clubs.  This has led to the establishment of a large number of clubs each fielding one or more teams in local leagues (both 11-aside and 7-aside) and offering coaching to players where possible.

The key founders of Kilwinning Sports Club were both involved as coaches in different local football teams having previously played themselves and now having family members as players.  Most local teams were playing on outdoor pitches operated by North Ayrshire Council.  These pitches were regarded by many teams as being in poor condition with irregular maintenance, drainage problems, and often inadequate changing facilities.  Matches were cancelled at short notice due to unplayable surfaces.  Players and clubs complained about the conditions but little appeared to change.

As a result of informal discussions, the shared problems became more widely recognised and one club undertook an audit of the football facilities across the town.  This was supported by several other clubs and the report was presented to the Council.  North Ayrshire Council identified several priorities for development and made some investment in the existing facilities but the changes appeared to be disjointed in their implementation.

At a sports seminar held locally in 1998, Jim Fleeting of the Scottish Football Association introduced the concept of Community Sports Clubs which had been widely adopted in Scandinavia.  The idea was taken up by a small group of local enthusiasts who could see the potential for bringing sport together across their own community in Kilwinning and the prospect for a new facility was borN. 

Stages of development

The enthusiastic founders formed an initial steering group that held various meetings with North Ayrshire Council over eighteen months from the late 1990’s.  The Council had established North Ayrshire Leisure to manage and operate its sports facilities and there appeared to be some willingness to ‘off-load’ the outdoor pitches at Pennyburn which were waterlogged and in poor condition if external funding could be secured for their development. 

The steering group organised a public meeting for all other sports clubs in the town and invited Craig Brown, the SFA National Coach to attend.  The idea of a Community Sports Club was introduced: each club would retain its independence but would agree to come together to share in the ownership and development of jointly used facilities.  Reactions from the various clubs varied: some could see the potential for such a scheme, particularly if it improved access to reliable facilities; others were sceptical and feared the loss of their own club autonomy; many doubted that the necessary funding could ever be secured.  In 2000, the steering group formally established Kilwinning Sports Club as a voluntary membership organisation, registered it as a charity, and affiliated it to North Ayrshire Sports Council.

The club secured a grant through the Local Social Capital grants program. They used this to commission a professional sports consultant to carry out a feasibility study. This quantified the requirements of the main clubs and identified the need for new and improved outdoor pitches at Pennyburn and the building of all-weather courts for coaching practice and other games throughout the year.  Other needs – for improved changing accommodation and a clubhouse and for facilities for other sports – were identified at the same time, but the club decided to proceed on the basis of a phased development. They were encouraged by the SFA to focus on football as the core sport where there was already substantial demand, and to let other sports develop later on the back of the initial development.

The feasibility study provided the club with costings for the work required.  These were used as part of the sportscotland Facilities Planning Model to work up more detailed proposals for the overall developments at the Pennyburn site.  The Pennyburn Community Association consulted 320 local people of whom 70% indicated their support for sport and recreational activities.  The steering group also related their plans to the development strategies of North Ayrshire Social Inclusion Partnership, Irvine and Kilwinning Local Plan, and Ayrshire and Arran Health Board.  At a key meeting with the Kilwinning Development Association, the plans were presented to secure official support.

The club has pursued a policy of submitting simultaneous funding applications to many potential sponsors and grant-awarding bodies.  This is often a time-consuming process with probably only 25% of applications being successful in securing funds.  Two approaches were made to the Lottery Sports Fund for capital funding with assistance from North Ayrshire Council.  An application under the school and community facilities strand for nearly £500,000 was unsuccessful, but a second application in 2002 under the local facilities strand resulted in a grant of £200,000 towards the first phase development costs of £368,000.

This application needed to show an element of matching funds from the club and demonstrate how the balance of the costs would be met.  As a newly established umbrella club, neither it nor the member clubs had reserves of their own to contribute to the project.  A housing development by Tay Homes in the area required the builder to provide an infrastructure of local services; as part of this project Tay Homes transferred around £200,000 to North Ayrshire Council for the development of sports facilities.  Kilwinning Sports Club bid to receive some of this money and the resulting £54,000 became the seed money which the club was able to contribute to the overall project.

Parallel applications were made to Children in Need (£25,000) and New Opportunities Fund Active Schools through North Ayrshire Council (£40,000).  At short notice, the club heard from the local housing association of an end-of-year underspend at Community Scotland and managed to secure £60,000 on condition that at least some building work could commence almost immediately.  Somewhat opportunistically, this persistence in chasing all potentially available sources of money completed the funding for the first phase of development.

Meanwhile work had been continuing at a more practical level.  North Ayrshire Council granted the club a 25-year lease on the land at Pennyburn and entered into a grounds maintenance contract.  The pitches were in poor condition with blocked drainage and uneven surfaces.  With £6,000 of local fund-raising, the club was able to make some immediate improvements.  The permanent goalposts were replaced by portable goals to enable a regular rotation of the pitches.  An area of trees in the centre of the land was removed revealing four manholes to the sub-pitch drainage.  With the removal of an old mattress, and the installation of spur drains, the land started to dry out.

Work on the grant-funded improvements began in August 2003 with the construction of four multi-sport synthetic courts and floodlighting.  These were intended primarily for football use but could also accommodate hockey and a range of other court-based sports.  12,000 square metres of pitches were also developed through better drainage and levelling, and landscaping and access routes around the facilities were also improved.  The all-weather courts were opened in September 2004, and the new grade 1 pitches will be ready for play in 2005.

The club had prioritised the development of playing facilities.  The site was overlooked by a small brick pavilion but as the number of pitches started to grow and use by local clubs increased, this accommodation quickly became too small.  Redeveloping the clubhouse was scheduled for a later phase of development.  The club looked around for temporary and affordable solutions.  Over the next year, the club obtained a series of secondhand portacabins which were transported to the site and linked to the existing services and buildings.  Today there are ten portacabins in an ever-expanding compound that provide changing rooms, showers, reception areas, office accommodation, a snack bar and storage.  The perimeter fence has had to be regularly extended to make room for new units.

Security has always been an issue for the club.  When the new pitches were being laid, joyriders managed to plough new furrows across the land.  Today, the whole site is protected with tall fencing, security lighting and closed-circuit cameras.  Even with this protection, thieves have broken it to steal sports equipment.  This is now minimised through the use of several large steel containers located across the site for the storage of goalposts, nets and other valuable equipment.

The expansion of the ‘portacabin city’ has created other sports development opportunities.  A fitness suite is now housed in three cabins offering a combination of semi-commercial fitness machines and donated secondhand equipment.  The tardis-like fitness accommodation has led to a considerable increase in club membership, and an aerobics studio has become the latest addition to the temporary accommodation.

Managing this rapid expansion of sports services has required on-site staff.  The original proposals envisaged a couple of staff to manage the facilities.  An application to the New Opportunities Fund Health Living Scheme resulted in an additional grant for the employment of staff.  A sportscotland Social Inclusion Partnership grant of £94,000 enabled the club to promote the facilities to households living in areas of deprivation within the community.  Each household was provided with a SIP entitlement card to use the club’s facilities; each use resulted in a drawdown against the grant and this money funded additional club staff.  A holiday playscheme at the club attracted around 70 young people each day.  A GP referral scheme brought in more local residents with a range of health and fitness needs.  A short 6-hole pitch-and-putt golf course, 9-hole putting green, and one full-size green have been constructed around the site and are now used as the coaching resource for the local clubgolf programme aimed at nine-year-old pupils creating a golfing pathway from primary school level into the three local golf clubs.

Sports activity today

In 2000, before the redevelopment of the Pennyburn site by Kilwinning Sports Club it is estimated that there were around 350 people regularly engaged in team sports, primarily football.

Today, the club is host to 33 football teams, equally divided between full 11-aside teams and all-weather 7-aside teams.  They include both adult and junior teams with representatives in all age categories.  Around 500 people are regularly playing football at the club and participating in various leagues and competitions; various teams have achieved success in national events.  In addition, a further 24 teams are entered into a local 5-aside league.

The fitness centre has around 1,500 registered users with a further 30 young people in the Fit Kids classes.  Various aerobics classes are organised for different groups on a sessional basis.

By becoming involved in the national clubgolf programme for primary schools, the club has opened a new sport and attracted a new audience of junior players as well as forming links to the golf clubs in the area.

With support from sportscotland and the SFA, the club has developed a pool of nearly 60 coaches qualified to teach football and other sports at Levels 1, 2 or 3.  As part of the clubgolf programme, the club now has three golf coaches qualified to Level 2.

Managing and maintaining the project

The club continues to be community-run and managed by the committee of Kilwinning Sports Club and employs primarily local people. 

Although there has been a substantial amount of capital funding on this project, the revenue costs remain small relative to many full-time sports centres.  Operating revenues come from a range of sources.  North Ayrshire Council remains responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the grounds.  The Club has applied to the Council for revenue funding each year since formation but without success.  The club has successfully applied to various grant-awarding bodies to secure funding to deliver sport and fitness to the local community, particularly through the New Opportunities Fund and the Social Inclusion Partnership.

Each of the teams and clubs pays an annual subscription for access to the facilities which entitles them to make use of the training and outdoor facilities on a scheduled basis.  The club provides all necessary equipment for players with the exception of the balls.

There are sessional booking fees for the use of indoor and outdoor facilities paid at the time of use.

Those wishing to make use of the indoor fitness pay an annual subscription of £7.50, and thereafter pay £1 for each session.

Key factors in the success of the project

Building a large and successful community club in under five years has not been easy.  It has required a lot of energy and commitment from a small group of founders.  In the early stages there were just six local people involved in the steering group, each taking on a variety of roles.  More recently, the main committee has been expanded with a further four positions responsible for commercial activities, equipment, development, and communications.  The club is now more organised through a series of sub-committees, and the new posts have been promoted with role descriptions to define their requirements and responsibilities.

The steering group made very extensive use of their personal contacts and networks.  They spent a lot of time chasing down leads and opportunities.  This has resulted in meetings with different organisations, offers of secondhand equipment and facilities, leads to potential sources of money, and advice from a range of sources.  All this has taken a great deal of time and energy on the part of the key drivers at the club.  It takes considerable time to prepare substantive capital grant applications and there is inevitable disappointment when only a small proportion succeeds.

The club has pursued a policy of multiple – and at times opportunistic – applications for funding.  Perhaps they have been more successful than most similar groups but their persistence has paid off.  Their location in an area of relative disadvantage has created more funding opportunities, but it should be noted that the club has also make extensive use of secondhand, recycled and domestic facilities to get their projects up-and-running. 

Problems and issues

Securing the cooperation and consent of a large number of diverse sports clubs during the initial planning of the club was a major problem.  Each club and team already had its own arrangements in place; several played against each other.  They were being asked to come together under one umbrella as part of a new project whose eventual outcome could not be foreseen.  Some clubs chose not to participate and have continued to play their own sports independently.

Kilwinning Sports Club has had to ‘weld together’ the member clubs and teams over the past few years without infringing the identity of each group.  One early question was whether each of the teams should merge into a single identity sharing a common strip and pooling their funds.  The club did succeed in obtaining sponsorship for thirteen sets of playing strips which have been provided to the teams.  Today, each team retains its own name but this is prefixed by a common ‘KSC’ name to associate the team with the club.

Managing a capital development project of this size requires considerable skill and experience.  The club has had to rely on the experience of other professionals to follow the required procedures for tendering, contracting and project management.  Now that it is receipt of so many different grants, the requirements for grant monitoring and reporting can be onerous and time-consuming to meet each funder’s different needs.

At a physical level, security and vandalism are on-going areas of potential difficulty.  During the pitch construction phase, lack of adequate security meant that work was disrupted by vandals.  The complex of temporary changing and clubhouse structures is difficult to make truly secure even with perimeter fencing, lighting and cameras.  The number of container boxes scattered across the site provides a degree of safe storage but still presents a challenge to the more determined thief.

Finally, the scale and nature of this development, from a standing start, for a relatively small community group may pose its own risks.  This rate of growth is difficult to sustain.  It makes considerable demands on a small number of people.  In the years ahead, the club may need to continue evolving sustainable arrangements for the long-term management of the facilities.

Key outcomes

• A successful community-owned, community-managed sports facility
• Sports activities delivered in a town with areas of considerable social disadvantage
• A growth in regular sports participation from 350 in 2000 to around 2,500 in 2005
• Successfully welding together a diverse range of clubs and teams into one new organisation, whilst retaining the autonomy and identify of each group
• Multiple opportunities for sports participation in football, hockey, golf, fitness and other sports
• Over 60 sports coaches helping both adults and junior to improve their standards of play
• Increased opportunities for young people to stay in sport as they grow older by moving into different age-group teams or by changing sport within the same club
• Minimal cost of participation in sport and fitness
• Quality of facilities starting to attract better players from other teams and clubs to use the facilities
• Becoming a recognised source of success within the local community

Anticipated future developments

The club committee remain ambitious for the development of this community sports club.  Over the past year or two, new initiatives have been introduced as opportunities arose.  Thus the fitness centre was created at low cost to accommodate more users in an indoor facility.  The national clubgolf programme has added a new sport to the club.  A central store of kit and recycled boots has been created to ensure that all youngsters can find suitable equipment at minimal cost.

The construction of the all-weather pitches and the new grass pitches were regarded as the first phase of club development.  The committee would like to improve all the grass pitches to Grade 1 standard in due course.  A new brick-built pavilion to accommodate changing rooms, fitness suites, social spaces and office accommodation will be required both to replace the current temporary structures and to accommodate the growing number of players and members.  One further suggestion is to convert the main grass pitch area to a full-sized floodlit pitch, perhaps with stadium accommodation on one or more sides which in turn could be used to provide clubhouse and indoor facilities beneath.

One or two members have also started to consider whether the club should approach the Council with a few to taking on the management of the other satellite sports facilities across the town which include two more grass pitches and another all-weather pitch, and developing a greater range of sports opportunities across Kilwinning. 

This case study has been prepared for sportscotland with the assistance of Kilwinning Community Sports Club in March 2005 for publication on the Help for Clubs website at www.helpforclubs.org.uk