Dozens of young girls in Grange have the opportunity to develop their football skills, thanks to funding from the Fibrus Play It Forward Fund.

The grant is an extra boost for the already rapid growth of girls’ football at Grange United Junior Football Club.

The club introduced its first girls’ team just five years ago, following an initiative led by the Football Association to encourage more young girls to take up the sport.

Tracy Hathorn, who sits on the football club’s board but also oversees all of the girls’ teams, admits they started very small.

“We managed to get nine girls on board back then,” she recalls.

Since then, the club has grown faster than anyone ever dared imagine, and now proudly boasts more than 70 girls as part of its teams.

Tracy says: “We run competitive teams for under-15s, under-13s and under-10s girls, with a new under-eights girls team. 

“We also have the Wildcats, a “just-for-fun” team for girls aged five to 11, with the hope some of these may choose to join the league as they get more and more into it.”

However, this rapid growth – coupled with an increase in the club’s boys’ teams too, as this year Grange United has two under-eight boys’ teams for the first time ever – comes at a cost.

“Each team needs its own equipment – footballs, cones, bibs etc,” admits Tracy. “So for every new team, there is a cost.

“This year was the largest equipment bill the club has ever had in its history.”

They applied to the Play It Forward Fund, which was set up by the broadband provider to support the communities it works with in Cumbria and Northern Ireland and encourage young people to put down their electronic devices and get outside and get active. 

Now in its second year, the fund has now allocated more than £100,000 to grassroots sports – including almost £40,000 in Cumbria.

Grange United Junior Football Club, which has a catchment across Grange-over-Sands, Allithwaite, Cartmel, Flookburgh, Newby Bridge, Levens and Cark, was one of the grassroots clubs to receive a grant in the latest round of funding.

Tracy says: “We are so grateful to Fibrus, because this grant has paid for a whole host of new equipment: training balls; match balls; pop-up goals; and cones are just some of the things we needed to buy.

“We want to encourage anyone who wants to play football to get involved, but we would have struggled without this grant.

“It’s made the world of difference to us.”

Linda McMillan, Chief People Officer at Fibrus, said: “We are passionate about the Play It Forward Fund because we understand how vital these community clubs are, especially in rural areas like Cumbria.

The growth of girls’ football at Grange United is phenomenal, and we are delighted to support them as they continue to go from strength to strength.”