On Friday 22nd May the Minister of Sport, local politicians, organisations, potential partners and supporters visited our site at EBSCA which allowed GCFC to showcase what has been achieved at the site so far and discuss some of the future opportunities being explored.

What exists at EBCSA today didn’t happen overnight. Fourteen years ago this was simply open land, old changing rooms and a small group of volunteers who believed the community deserved something better.

Since then, through huge amounts of volunteer time, partnership working and support from local people and a couple of million pounds, we’ve transformed the site into something used by more than 3,000 people every week across football, rugby and wider community activity.

As GCFC, Birkenshaw Bluedogs and EBCSA continue to grow together, it’s become increasingly clear that the site needs to evolve beyond being simply somewhere sport takes place on evenings and weekends.

Sport will always remain at the heart of what we do, but the impact goes far beyond football and rugby.

* It’s about giving young people safe places to belong.
* It’s about health and wellbeing.
* It’s about inclusion.
* It’s about opportunities for girls sport.
* It’s about education, employability and community pride.

At the same time, grassroots sport nationally is under huge pressure. Facilities are expensive to run, volunteer time is stretched and costs continue to rise. Most community sports sites also sit largely empty during weekdays, relying almost entirely on evening and weekend usage to survive.

That’s why EBCSA is now exploring the next phase of its journey — evolving into a true community sports and wellbeing hub operating seven days a week.

The next stage of the development is the proposed Community Hub. Over the last couple of months, EBCSA has been working with consultants on a business case for the project, which some of you contributed towards through the recent survey — thank you to everyone who took the time to provide feedback.

We have also now appointed an architectural practice to help design the proposed hub, understand potential project costs and support EBCSA through the pre-application planning phase with Kirklees Council.

Importantly, EBCSA isn’t a separate organisation sitting above the clubs — it’s the shared community organisation created to protect, develop and sustain the facilities and opportunities used by everyone across GCFC, BBD and the wider community.

This next phase includes exploring opportunities around:

* Education provision
* Community and wellbeing programmes
* Expanding girls and disabilities football
* Wider rugby development
* Stronger local partnerships
* Potential future facility expansion

The event was about showing external organisations what has already been achieved here and starting conversations about what could be possible in the future with the right partnerships and support behind us.

Nothing has been decided and any future developments would always involve discussion and alignment with the clubs and EBCSA board, but the response yesterday was extremely positive and it was great to see so many people recognising the potential of what could be created here together.

As the site continues to grow, we’d also love to see even more people across the clubs feeling connected to and involved in the wider EBCSA journey, because ultimately this is something being built for the benefit of the whole community.

Most importantly, none of this happens without the volunteers, coaches, managers, parents, players and supporters across GCFC who continue to give up their time to support the club, the site and the wider community.

Thank you for all the support, effort and belief that has got us this far.