Accrington Stanley Community Trust hosted one of Lancashire FA’s Charter Standard presentations at last Saturdays home match against Newport County.

The FA Charter Standard club programme recognises and rewards high quality levels of provision in club and league football. The kite mark is awarded to clubs and leagues that are well run, sustainable, which place child protection, quality coaching and safety paramount. Criteria for achieving the award includes having a trained Welfare Officer, (Criminal Records Check) CRC checks for all volunteers, Emergency Aid-trained volunteers linked to each team, Respect programme sign-up, a Level One coach for each youth team, appropriate club administration in place and a volunteer coordinator. Rishton United, St Josephs and Hyndburn Youth have all achieved this criteria which is a great achievement for all clubs and shows a commitment to creating a safe and controlled environment for young children to develop their football skills.

Speaking about the event Community Manager Martin Fearon said ‘I spoke to Lancashire FA a few months ago about the possibility of us hosting future charter standard presentations for Hyndburn clubs at Accrington Stanley as opposed to Blackburn Rovers. They gladly accepted that Hyndburn clubs ought to be coming to their local professional club for their presentations and we were delighted to organise the event. Overall there was close to 250 representatives on the day from the grassroots clubs and we have received some great feedback on how much they enjoyed themselves and cannot wait to attend future matches’’.

Accrington Stanley Community Trust would like to thank Lancashire FA for their support with this event and congratulate all the grassroots teams that received their charter standard award.