📻 About this episode

Our guest on this episode of the Club Development Podcast is Raza Sadiq, the founder and chairperson of Active Life Club, a charitable organisation empowering young people through sport.

Last week, Raza was awarded with the Lifetime Contribution award by Sport Scotland for his outstanding dedication to supporting young people in Glasgow through Active Life Sport and the club are also up for Scottish sport club of the year, also at the Sport Scotland Awards – not to mention a few others along the way!

Over the course of the episode, we spoke about his motivation for starting the organisation back in 1999, the development of the club since then, the governance of the organisation – including the inclusion of young people on their board and plans for their 25th anniversary next year.

🎽 Active Life Club

Active Life Club is a registered charity managed by volunteers. They offer services for young people for their social and mental well being through sports.

🎙️ About the Club Development Podcast

The Club Development Podcast is a podcast all about the development of sustainable community sports clubs across the UK. Our podcasts will cover a range of news, stories, guidance and funding information to help support clubs in their growth and development.

🏟️ About Club Development Consultancy

While Club Development Consultancy can’t guarantee success on the pitch, we can show you a route to succeed off it as one of UK's leading sport club consultants.

We know finding the time and expertise to develop, grow and generally improve your sports club can be difficult. However, help is at hand through our support.

Here at Club Development Consultancy we offer guidance and support to enable the development of sustainable community sports clubs that win for everyone.

We bring unrivalled experience having helped sports groups raise more than £50 million in funding and can typically help a club raise an extra 25% in revenue.

Find out more about our guidance and services at www.clubdevelopment.co

🤝 Partners:

We work with a range of fantastic partners who provide services and products to community sports clubs. Explore our partners below and see how they can support you in growing a winning club.

Please note, in some cases, Club Development Consultancy may earn commission from successful sign ups.

📹 Veo

Veo is the ultimate camera for team sports. Record and live-stream your matches automatically and take your game a level up. Through Club Development Consultancy, you are entitled to a Veo Special Offer discount of 20% off. To activate this discount, simply follow the link and instructions to sign up: bit.ly/3FhOpGz

💰 EasyFundraising

We’ve recently partnered with easyfundraising so your team can earn free funding whenever your teammates and local community shop online. They partner with over 8,000 online brands, so everything from everyday online purchases and mundane bills can help fund running costs, pitch fees, new equipment, and more. Sign up here: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/register-your-good-cause/?invite=5MYL09&referral-campaign=c2c&utm_campaign=refCROtest

🤕 Insure4Sport

Insure4Sport offers specialist sports insurance for amateur sports teams covering over 60 different team based sports – from football to water polo to cheerleading.

Their flexible sports team insurance policies are suitable for teams that meet regularly and play all year round, as well as groups that only get together every so often, or play abroad.

You can benefit from a 30% discount when you sign up to Insure4Sport via our referral code: https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?s=3455776&v=2546&q=471689&r=304077

📻 About this episode

We spoke to David Fallon, Head of Development at Scottish Athletics. David is responsible for two strategic pillars of Scottish Athletic's work, facilities and clubs. We spoke about his career in sport to date and the support he and his team provide to athletics clubs across the country, including their upcoming Club Leaders Academy.

We kick off our new Club Development Consultancy podcast with a fascinating interview with Andy MacRae, General Secretary of Bealonians FC who are currently petitioning Redbridge Council to keep their club at Oakfields Playing Fields.

Bealonians FC have been in the London Borough of Redbridge since 1936 and are the largest grassroots football club in the borough.

At the request of Redbridge council, Bealonians FC have been caretakers of Oakfields Playing Fields since 2020. Looking after it in the absence of a lease, they have invested in its maintenance and provided a vital lifeline to the community.

The club have since learned that the council is planning on granting the lease to Premier League club West Ham United, which would leave Bealonians FC and its 29 youth teams (including two girls teams) and ten adult men’s teams, without a place big enough in the borough to relocate to.

The club claims that if they were to lose the site, it would have a dramatic impact on the health and wellbeing of the community - counter intuitive to a number of priorities stated in Redbridge Council strategy. It would also mean the potential privatisation of what is currently a public green space enjoyed by thousands in the community.

In this 'Club Development Scotland meets' episode, Andrew chats to Mark Covington, CEO of SNAP Sponsorship (https://snapsponsorship.com/) about how clubs can attract and develop their sponsorship offering to businesses through the platform.

SNAP Sponsorship helps clubs promote their opportunities to a wider audience while sharing best practices when it comes to negotiating and securing sponsorship, all within one easy-to-use platform.

Through our partnership with SNAP, you can benefit from 12 months of support for the price of just 11 months by using the promotional code: “clubdevelopmentscotland”. What’s more, you’ll keep 100% of the sponsorship you raise.

In this episode I talked with my colleague Alan Russell who leads Supporters Direct Scotland, to talk about the recently-published project report from their study on volunteering in football "Giving volunteers the space to make a difference".

The report is the culmination of a project which took place during lockdown, funded by SD Europe.

Read the report at https://www.supporters-direct.scot/research/giving-volunteers-the-space-to-make-a-difference/ and support our work during 2021 via https://www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

We talked to Mike McInnes about his book "Man the Footballer: Homo Passiens", available from the Blizzard bookshop (https://theblizzard.co.uk/homo-passiens-man-footballer/news/). Why would human beings choose just two legs for transportation rather than three, or even four? There can only be one explanation, according to Mike. He offers a radical hypothesis, grounded by principles drawn from the evolutionary and cultural history of mankind, that humans evolved bipedalism for the purpose of playing football.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like us to do more, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

We met this week with Steven Lawther, author of "Arrival: How Scotland's Women Took Their Place on the World Stage and Inspired a Generation" - now available for pre-order from Pitch Publishing at https://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/arrival

In the 1970s women's football in Scotland was unrecognised by the SFA and there was no national team. Arrival tells the fascinating and inspiring story of how Scotland's female footballers fought for their right to play and battled intolerance in order to build a team that would compete with the best, qualify for the World Cup and inspire a nation.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like us to do more, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

This week, in the long-awaited return of Behind The Goals, we talk to James Atkins (https://twitter.com/footballpsl) - the man behind Planet Super League, a football tournament which brings the family together to help the planet and your football club.

Planet Super League sets a number of different activities for you and your family to do. The more you do, the more points you win for your club, and the higher up the league your club will go. The first PSL season ran at the end of 2020 with Leicester crowned champions, PSL 2 is coming soon, and we're looking forward to a Scottish PSL later this year to coincide with the COP 26 Climate Change conference being held in Glasgow.

All activities are lockdown-safe, and you’ll learn how to live more sustainably, save some money, have some fun, and compete for prizes and bragging rights. Visit https://www.planetsuperleague.com to sign up.

James is also the author of "Climate Change for Football Fans: A Matter of Life and Death" - published back in 2010 but even more relevant today than it was then.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like us to do more, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

In this week’s podcast we’re speaking to Stuart Haw, a PhD researcher looking at Community Asset Transfers in the sports sector. Community Asset Transfers are something you might already be familiar with, but equally, you might just be hearing about them for the first time.

CATs could be increasingly relevant to sport organisations as recent research suggests that the impact of COVID19 will mean many community facilities across Scotland will never re-open. According to a recent survey of public operators, current forecasts are that around 116 public sport, leisure and culture facilities across all regions of Scotland – including 18 leisure centres and eight swimming pools – are facing permanent closure as a result of the lockdown. A further 900 that could re-open may not do so for some time.

This threat to our facilities also presents an opportunity for sports organisations to take ownership of them through CATS, and we ask Stuart about what the process looks like for CATs, what kind of skill sets a club would need to undertake one and for some examples of best practice.

You can follow Stuart on Twitter @Haw_Stuart

If you find the Club Development Scotland podcast useful, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

In this week’s podcast, we speak to Mick Livsey, Commercial Director of Oxford City FC. This episode is a case study in how best to bring commercial income by getting it right ‘off the pitch’.

We discuss the club’s extensive work in the community, including the delivery of a refugee league, the provision of 300 free meals a day during the lockdown and becoming the first team to offer free attendance for children.

If you find the Club Development Scotland podcast useful, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland