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"To herald the official launch of the The Pink2" 20th September 2006 created by Ian Mackay
BBC REPORT ON FACILITIES
The above website all you need to know from malcolm Stewart & Alan Archibald
JIM FERGUSON PRESIDENT
David Norris, General Secretary
President
East of
Scotland Football League and
THOUSANDS of footballers representing hundreds of community-based football clubs will take to the streets of Edinburgh on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2007, in a united demand for better facilities for football and other sports at council-owned facilities in the Capital. Under the banner of Unite the Clubs Forum Protest March, a group of volunteers from many different youth clubs in Edinburgh have put aside all their perceived differences at long last to form a committee dedicated to getting modern, clean, hygienic and civilised facilities for football and other sports in a bid to bring about change in the way politicians at both local and national level fund the provision of modern changingroom buildings and the best synthetic synthetic enclosures with floodlights. Also high on the list of requirements for the modern day youth in this deprived country of Scotland are facilities for young people to socialise after games and also a place to entertain teams from other parts of the country and abroad, too. For more than 60 years, facilities for young people wanting to play for community-based clubs have been allowed to detoriate, with Edinburgh's pitches and buildings among the worst and dearest to hire anywhere in Scotland. Organiser of the Unite the Clubs Forum Protest March, Les Trotter, said: "This march is for all our young people, it is not for one club. We are determined to get better facilities for community-based clubs all over Edinburgh. We are united in our bid to take this to the politicians. The march will take place during the school break in February and, as it Valentine's Day, all the kids will be given heart-shaped red cards to show to politicians at the City Chambers and also at the Scottish Parliament. We are looking for help from business people and other organisations, such as the big supermarket chains in Edinburgh. This is a march on behalf of community-based clubs and we hope these big supermarkets will supply us with water bottles and 'goodie bags' for the kids taking part. This will be a huge march and we hope to issue a CD containing all the football anthems we can put on it. The massed ranks of those taking part can sing these anthems during the march, which is due to start at King's Stables Road, then on to Lothian Road, Princes Street, the Mound, Bank Street, High Street (stopping at City Chambers to present a petition) then on to the Scottish Parliament before a huge meeting in Holyrood Park. It will be sensational, but all of us involved intend continuing this campaign after the march. We are doing this for future generations of our young people. If any other schools of clubs, boys, girls, women and men, want to take part, they can contact me on lesflotrotter@hotmail.com We are marching not just for football but for all others sports, too. We want to share modern facilities with other organisations!" The Unite the Clubs Forum are busy preparing letters to send out to every member club in the Scottish Youth Football Association asking for support. These letters will go to clubs throughout Scotland in the hope that they, too, will unite behind this dramatic march which looks certain to be featured on television and the media. Representatives will, hopefully, be given space in the big shopping malls and supermarkets so that they can raise the profile and awareness of the action being taken on behalf of all our young people. The start of 2'007 will herald a new beginning for community-based clubs in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland, with the magnificent volunteers from the Capital in the forefront of what is an incredible campaign for justice, fairness, impartiality and an end to the cronyism, favouritism and elitism that is prevalent in every part of life in this country, particularly it appears when it comes to the lack of funding for community-based sports clubs.
Blame City for selling off our green spaces
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