Sidlesham
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Sidlesham
FOOTBALL CLUB
It has been a year of progress for Sidlesham FC in 2016-17 and
they now have a perfect platform to build for the future. Football
Focus Magazine recently caught up with Chairman/Manager Daren
Pearce to find out more about the work they have been doing.
Involvement
He told us, “I started out at Sidlesham
this season (2016-2017) after a good friend
of mine who I worked with at a previous
club went to an open meeting at the club
regarding how they could keep the club
running, as like a lot of grass roots football
clubs it was struggling to run.
We agreed to help out with pre-season
to begin with and then as pre-season
was starting the manager stepped down.
The chairman asked us to carry on as a
management team and as we went about
this the chairman stepped away due to
personal reasons leaving the club with
no chairman but with myself and Andy
to run it along with a few of the old
committee.
One of the attractions for me was the
scope of how much you could do with the
club and with the attraction of bringing
my successful U16s team across to become
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the youth u18 team, they needed a senior
club to play for and this was a great
opportunity for them.”
The Role
“The most challenging thing is
attracting sponsorship money in to
help with the cost of kit, tracksuits and
equipment, plus the running of the club
for the everyday purpose, plus the cost
of putting matches on at weekends with
the additional costs of all amenities for
the football club. We are always on the
lookout for new sponsors and any help or
ideas for the improvement of the football
club.”
Atmosphere
“At the moment, the mood is very
buoyant with the ground having major
work done. The floodlights have been
fixed and are now working after 4-5years!
The ground grading committee have
visited and recommended us for a ground
grading which the club will need to
gain promotion in the next few seasons.
The old stand has been renovated and
extended with seats put in and more
covered standing area is now available.
The football club has had a major tidy
up and been painted, so although an old
building, it now looks in good order and
up and is running again.
The mood is helped by the first season
we have had together which has been
successful as two to three weeks before
the season started myself and Andy didn’t
know many of the players and they didn’t
know how we worked, but with a cup
final and another semi-final reached and
a possible 3rd or 4th place finish I would
say with all the other things done it’s been
a successful start to our project.”