Tamworth FC has launched a partnership with two local charities who ‘do fantastic work in and around the area.’
St Giles Hospice and Simon’s Heroes will feature on the Tamworth Ladies and Tamworth Scholars’ away shirt for this year’s 2019-2020 season, with the former’s name and branding on the front and the latter on the back.
A charity tournament is also being planned for next summer with Tamworth FC, St Giles and Simon’s Heroes all entering teams.
Explaining the partnership at the launch on Tuesday afternoon, Rich Wassall, general manager at Tamworth FC told the Herald: ‘As a club, we had this opportunity to get the charities involved and publicise their work. Both do fantastic work in and around the local area, and Tamworth Football Club would like to help in any way possible.
‘St Giles is obviously a massive charity that is close to many and Simon’s Heroes does a lot for a lot of people in the local area.
‘It will be used as an away kit for our ladies team and also for our scholars who are our under 19’s. We have got four scholar teams that play on a Wednesday afternoon so at least one team should be using it each week and then our ladies will be using it every other week when they are away from home.
‘We are trying to grow as a community club. I know Simon’s Heroes did have a charity event here this year and have done for a couple of seasons; it is a great little earner for them. We will do anything we can to help them out.’
A delighted Rebecca Vine, Simon’s Heroes trustee, said: ‘Obviously we are thrilled, it is brilliant. We feel really, really privileged.
‘This is a massive local landmark for us to have our name shown at and hopefully it can help bring sponsors in. It is all about that awareness for us.
‘More and more people will visit here that aren’t from Tamworth and we cover a 15 mile radius of Tamworth so this will get our name out there even more.
‘We have organised three Simon’s Heroes matches and this year it was against The Belfry. Some of our members attend Tamworth FC matches as well, so the club had heard of the charity before. A couple of weeks ago Rich messaged us about the opportunity and I was over the moon.’
Lucy Best, community fundraiser at St Giles Hospice added: ‘It is massive to have support from our local community. Any support is always valued because it really helps get our name out there and helps people realise who we are and what we do.
‘It costs £9.8m to run the hospice and we have to raise £6m which is a phenomenal figure and can be very hard so support like this really helps.
‘It is amazing to have our brand shown off. I don’t think we can thank Tamworth FC enough, quite honestly, and we would love to build a relationship with them off the back of this.’
The shirts are available to pre-order by emailing Rich at richwassall@thelambs.co.uk. You are welcome to try them on in the club shop before ordering.
Author: Dan Newbold, Tamworth Herald.
