The club, located on Crewe Road, has received a £1000 donation that they are using to improve and maintain a conservation area on the club’s grounds.
The work is being carried out by all of the club’s 300 members, with a focus on involving it’s assisted needs groups so they can take ownership of their club.
Club chairman, Simon Hoyland says the club’s ethos is to provide much more than a place for games of football. They aim to teach valuable life lessons and create a place where everyone will feel welcome and comfortable: “The idea for the conservation area came about a couple of years ago after our assisted needs football team had a couple of players that were at college learning horticulture and needed an opportunity to practise. I had just started to learn about beekeeping, and I thought it would be a good idea for the players to learn about the wildlife we had at the ground. That’s when I had the idea to build a nature walk."
Another aim of the project is to encourage wildlife back to the club’s grounds and to also provide a nature and seating area for its members to enjoy.
Simon continues: “The full perimeter of the ground measures just under a kilometre and we have planned a nature walk with twists and turns plus tunnels and rope swings to make it even more exciting. We intend to get the local schools involved as time goes on so that they can adopt certain sections and we anticipate that in five years the area will be totally transformed.”
The club offers a place for children to build crucial friendships and works as a prevention mechanism for those children who may be at risk of social exclusion.
“Once it is finished, the nature area will encompass physical and mental health benefits as well as encouraging social inclusion too for our children,” adds Simon.
Simon Bennett, interim sales director for the North West says: “Football clubs were out of operation for the good part of a year due to Covid and we all know how crucial they are to our children. Cheshire Blades is going one step further and creating an area that can be enjoyed, not just by its players, but by their families too and it will be a permanent fixture at the club and in the community as well.”
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