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Chairman of Ambleside Junior Football Club, Richard Moore, said:

“We are really excited about the opportunities for development at Sandon Park, after outgrowing our current facilities, starting with 20 children in 2004 and growing to 350 across 26 teams and counting in 2018. The club has been working closely with NBBC and Birmingham County Football Association regarding gaining access to further space and grassed areas due to the size of the club.

“Following close consultation with the relevant authorities we are really optimistic about the funding for redevelopment of the site being granted and the process for this has already begun. We have been informed of the avenues available to a club of our size leasing a site such as Sandon Park from organisations, such as the Football Foundation.

"The Sandon Park site can hopefully be used to bring the changing facilities and pitches up to a good standard, not just for junior football, but for the community at large, whilst still staying a stone's throw away from our umbrella club and our roots at Ambleside Sports Club.

“Our first thoughts once arrangements are confirmed for the lease of the site was always to work with the clubs that have felt frozen out and disillusioned by the process. We have held meetings with Weddington Thistle and another Sunday league football clubs to put together arrangements for their continued use of the site and have discussed our ambitions and proposals with them. Weddington Thistle were very keen to get involved, work with us and go above and beyond, all for the benefit of the site. The opportunity for clubs and volunteers working together can only be enormously positive for the wider community and we cannot wait to begin.”

Cllr Ian Lloyd, Deputy Leader and portfolio holder for Arts, Leisure and Economic Development said:

“We are really pleased with the potential opportunities this project could offer for local residents, encouraging more young people, both boys and girls to get involved with local football and increasing their physical activity levels. Since the adoption of the Boroughs Playing Pitch Strategy, it has been our intention to work closely with Clubs, who want to develop opportunities around self-management to facilitate such opportunities. This is one of three Clubs we are currently supporting at present.

“We had to move quickly this year following the reduction in adult teams requesting NBBC pitches. Football teams submitted their request to NBBC in early July and only then could we look at efficient use of resources and look to consolidate at key “hub” sites.  With this in mind we allocated the two Clubs from Sandon to Paul’s Land, so that we could look to see if Ambleside would be interested with the Sandon site for delivery. However this has now worked out very positive with Clubs talking to each other for the benefit of football”. I would like to thank all involved especially Ambleside JFC the Nuneaton & District Football League for their support in this opportunity.”

Nuneaton & District Chairman Andrew Baggott said:

“The Nuneaton & District Sunday League has always been here to provide the opportunity to play football and we are pleased that an agreement has been reached with Ambleside, for Sandon to be available to the community both for Junior and Adult football. Ambleside are a well-run organisation with hardworking people behind them so Sandon is in safe hands with them.”

“It is also pleasing to see that the teams who played at Sandon last season were included in the consultations and that Weddington Thistle have been accommodated in the new plans. 

“Going forward we have always had a great working relationship with NBBC and we want to work more closely with them in their Pitch Strategy to achieve their goals relating to sports pitches and facilities.”