Since 2019, Essex Charity FC has raised over £15,000 for numerous charities simply through the love of playing the world’s most popular sport – football.
Of course, behind the scenes it takes a little more organisation than just turning up and playing football, but through the efforts of everyone involved, Essex Charity FC has grown into one of the most well-known charitable football teams in the country.
CommunityAd were lucky enough to catch up with one of the charity’s directors and 1st team manager, Dean Parker, to find out a little bit more about the club and what’s coming up in the next few months.
Dean explained: “Since 2019 we’ve done nothing but grow behind the scenes, the club was started by John King in 2019 who wanted to raise money for multiple charities across the UK through his passion for football.
“We work very close with Witham Town FC and play there most Friday evenings and some Sundays. They are absolutely superb, they back and support us and it’s great to have that affiliation with the club. We get an average of 100-200 people come to watch and support us, and anything we raise 100% of it goes straight to the chosen charity.
“The club brings everyone together, all standards of footballers, we are just blokes who enjoy playing football and my job is to make sure everyone gets a fair crack and enjoys it with the main goal being raising money for the chosen charity.”
The ability to raise so much money comes from the incredible efforts the team put in sharing the JustGiving page on all of their social media pages, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. For example, the team set up a fundraising page for their family focused event on 3rd October which raised over £1,500 in under two weeks.
Dean added: “We pride ourselves as a big family, we have a motto: one team, one family. If we are each pushing the charity and the link it reaches hundreds and hundreds of people and that’s where most of donations come from. Every game we have is free, but we have collection buckets going around during the game after at the bar to collect some pocket change.”
Essex Charity FC have teamed up with Nightingale FC, who support the NHS, to bring an exciting new competition to charity teams across the country; The National Affinity Cup. This new competition is similar to the FA Cup and is an FA affiliated competition which see between 62-64 charities teams battle it out the for winner.
Soccer am questions
Hardest trainer at the club? “I got to give it to the Captain, his name’s Kevin, but we nickname him Rocky. He goes down to the gym about three times a day, plays football and goes back to the gym. He puts us all to shame.”
Who’s the quickest? “That would be Monty, he’s one of our latest signings who’s absolutely rapid. Could definitely give Usain Bolt a go.”
Who’s the slowest? “He’s not going to like me, but I’m going to have to give it to our vice chairman Spencer.”
Worst dressed? “I’ll give it to Reagan, only because he looks like a biker.”
Club hardman? “Without saying myself, everyone’s scared of me, I would also give this one to Reagan, he looks the part too. Having him there with his biker beard, you wouldn’t want to face him.”
Most skilful: “That would definitely be Chris Armstong, here’s our Messi in the team.”
Most intelligent: “Everyone’s one sandwich short of a picnic, but I’d have to give that to Chris Armstrong as well.”