Nationwide Building Society Awards £1000 grant to Hartley Wintney JFC

Junior Football Club secures £1,000 Mutual Respect Grant

• Nationwide Building Society awards 50 £1,000 grants to grassroots football clubs
• Awards given out to UK clubs who best demonstrated what mutual respect means
• Hartley Wintney Junior FC has been awarded a grant to help the club in any way they see fit
• Over 600 applications received with clubs explaining what respect means to them

Nationwide Building Society has awarded £1,000 to Hartley Wintney Junior football club after it impressed judges in a UK-wide competition built around mutual respect within the grassroots game.

Britain’s biggest Building Society has partnered with Football Associations across the UK in landmark three-year deals to help foster positivity and respect across grassroots football. The simple aim is to create a society that's built on mutual respect.

In August Nationwide committed to donating £50,000 to their newly formed Mutual Respect Grants fund to help support grassroots football. Clubs and teams could apply for one of the 50 grants by explaining why respect is important to their club to be in the chance with being awarded £1,000.

There were more than 600 applications from across the UK, with Hartley Wintney Junior Football Club from Hampshire chosen as one of the lucky deserving winners.

What does respect mean to Hartley Wintney Junior Football Club?

Hartley Wintney Junior Football Club isan FA Charter Standard Community Club, providing football for boys and girls of the local community in an enjoyable, friendly, and safe environment. Respect is key to our ethos as a club - and we are proud that Nationwide recognised our current respect initiatives as being up there with the best.

All of our managers, coaches, parents, and players sign up to our Respect Code of Conduct to be members of our club. With a growing number of players and teams we are recruiting more Club Welfare Officers to help on match days and at training. Instantly recognisable by their purple CWO bibs, they walk around our pitches answering questions and welcoming people to our club. First impressions really do count, and we want to be known as an open caring and respectful club. After every game, all our teams – players, coaches, and supporters – are marked for their sportsmanship - and we value these scores and review every team as they progress throughout the season.

In partnership with Hampshire FA, we launched our first ever Referee Course in August. We now have 14 young people who have started their careers as referees; a further 24 budding referees are taking the course at the October half term. We strongly believe that if more players understand and respect our referees, many who are as young as 14 years old, then we are a step closer to achieving mutual respect both on and off the pitch in our community.

Suzanne McDermott-Swan, Club Welfare and Grant Officer, said: “We rely on community support and grants to help us achieve our club goals. This award from Nationwide recognises the effort we put in and how important the respect ethos is at this club. This is an honour in what has been a challenging year for a club run by volunteers looking to keep a great club going and growing the right way. The resect grant will help is to continue this work and be recognised for our core values.”

Emily Barker, Brand Partnerships Manager at Nationwide Building Society, said: “Mutual respect is something that we value at the core of Nationwide in everything we do, so to be able to give these grants to the clubs that need them the most and those that themselves have demonstrated respect on and off the pitch is really exciting. We are looking forward to seeing how grassroots clubs put the money to use and the difference it makes.”

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About Nationwide

Nationwide is the world's largest building society as well as one of the largest savings providers and a top-three provider of mortgages in the UK. It is also a major provider of current accounts, credit cards, ISAs and personal loans. Nationwide has around 15 million customers. Customers can manage their finances in a branch, via the mobile app, on the telephone, internet and post. The Society has around 18,000 employees. Nationwide's head office is in Swindon with administration centres based in Northampton, Bournemouth and Dunfermline. The Society also has a number of call centres across the UK.

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