The established Vale Reds Disability Football Club win the club of the month award due to their continued hard work and commitment towards inclusivity and gaining insport accreditation. The Vale Reds have been a stalwart in the Vale of Glamorgan over the past decade for aspiring footballers with a disability to get involved in a mainstream sport.
The Vale Reds are a Pan Disability Club which means they have members who have a variety of different disabilities, in fact most members have more than one disability. Men and women are members of the football club and ages range from 11 years old to approximately 35 years old. Within each age group there are 3 bands of ability including novice, intermediate and advanced.
The Club is run solely by volunteers who hold one training night each week . Coach and Chairperson Neil Latham alongside his wife Pat who is the Safeguarding officer of the Vale Reds realised there was no structure in place when they joined the club and participation and membership was decreasing so they contacted Disability Sport Wales for direction.
Neil Latham said “We contacted the Vale of Glamorgan development officer Simon Jones who advised us on the way forward to be accredited and be part of the insport project. Some of the items we needed were in place but needed updating. By speaking with Simon, he gave us very clear guidelines what was needed for the accreditation which would also help us in running the Club. We wanted to improve the structure of the Club so this would improve the coaching and ultimately the players training and participation with the sport.”
The insport project is funded through a 3 year cycle by the St James’ Place Foundation, the charitable arm of the St. James's Place Wealth Management Group, which enables the delivery of resources, case officers (insport NGB), and the delivery of workshops (UK DIT) to support the sport and leisure network workforce.
As a result of restructuring the club, the Vale reds have increased membership consistently and achieved ribbon level insport. Being insport accredited has made a significant impact on Vale Reds according to Neil Latham ,“we have now forged better links with Disability Sports Wales through insport, other disability clubs and the coaches of the future programme. We are not isolated and have been successful in obtaining funding and being part of insport has benefitted our applications. We have noticed significantly since having the insport accreditation we have attracted more players and more coaches.”
The Club Chairman would strongly recommend others clubs to become insport accredited “Try to obtain the basic level of accreditation and work forward from there. This may take some time and will be a lot of work but the benefits outweigh the negatives. If you need extra coaches or more players this is a very good place to start. Parents/carers of young players are more likely to look at accredited clubs first.”
The Vale Reds are beginning the insport bronze level accreditation shortly but want to improve further and eventually obtain Gold standard. To achieve this, the club have embarked on a new partnership with Barry Town FC which will see the Vale Reds fully integrated into the football club where they will receive support regarding policies and structure. The club will be rebranded under the Barry Town umbrella for the beginning of next season which will boost awareness of disability football in the Vale of Glamorgan as Barry Town FC are the most supported and highest placed team from the authority in the Football Welsh League.
The future prospects of the Vale Reds is extremely stable and ever-growing. “This affiliation will bring us better opportunities for players, coaches and support volunteers. This move has been well supported by our Disability Sports Office and the Welsh Football Trust. In the future we hope to integrate disability players with able bodied players. This would mean that the players would keep developing their skills and potential. This will also have a huge benefit on the members’ social interaction. Hopefully if this is successful we would be able to set up a league for integrated teams“ explains Neil Latham as he outlines his vision for the future of the club.
Rob Franklin, Regional Development Co-ordinator Welsh Football Trust said, “I am extremely pleased to hear the Vale Reds have won the insport club of the month award. The club have shown a real commitment over past few seasons to grow disability football in the area and are continually welcoming new members to the club. Next season will see the club form stronger links with Barry Town FC helping to ensure there is an appropriate inclusive environment for players to participate whatever their ability.”
Simon Jones, Disability Sport Wales Development Officer said: "Congratulations to the Vale Reds on achieving Insport club of the month. They have done brilliantly in recent years to strengthen the club and grow Its membership, a lot of hard work has been put into this by the committee who are all very committed to ensuring the club becomes sustainable. The Vale Reds easily achieved insport Ribbon as they already have a number of policies in place, I am very confident they will complete Bronze due to how well the club is structured."
Michelle Daltry, Disability Sport Wales Partnership Manager said: “ The Vale Reds have provided high quality football opportunities for disabled people for many years. It is great to see the club going from strength to strength and I would like to thank them for all their hard work.”
The Vale Reds tenth birthday is next year and with the new partnership with Barry Town FC it looks to be an exciting future for the club where inclusivity is a key element of the clubs agenda.
To find out more please visit http://valeredsdisabilityfc.btck.co.uk
