Royston Town are fighting back against the impact of the pandemic on young people in their community with the launch of a new mental health workshop programme. 

The programme will focus on topics such as inclusion, motivation and leadership skills as part of a package that will be delivered to all Key Stage 2 children in Royston. 

The scheme will be free to schools in Royston thanks to money the Crows received from the Trident Community Foundation, which was launched in December 2020 as part of Pitching In’s multi-million-pound investment in grassroots sports. 

Head of Community Lewis Endacott said: “We’ve got a relationship with the schools and we’ve noticed since Covid that there’s been a big impact on the children’s mental health. 

“The idea that we’ve come up with is to deliver mental health workshops, focusing around different areas which don’t directly use the word mental health. 

“But it’s all attributes which contribute towards that so the children are contributing towards their mental health without realising that it’s helping their mental health. 

“We’re looking at areas like inclusion, motivation, aspiration, goal setting, role models, leadership skills; all of those are going to be touched on when we’re delivering those programmes within schools.” 

The Crows are already deeply involved in the community, running PE lessons and after-school clubs, but the new programme will be delivered in school time to all children. 

“This enables us to reach out to schools and offer them that something a little bit more than just going in and delivering a football session,” added Endacott. 

“Our aim is to have an impact on every single child in Royston.” 

The programme was part of Royston’s grant application to the Trident Community Foundation and Endacott underlined just how important it was in enabling such a positive community scheme. 

He said: “This grant has massively helped as it enables us to offer this programme to the schools free of charge. 

“We’re going in, delivering to the schools, having an impact on all of these children and it’s not costing the school a penny. We’re having such a big impact on lots of children and hopefully in a really positive way.” 

The programme underlines Royston’s important role in the local community, much like many other non-league clubs up and down the country. 

“People look at a football club and think you have to play football to be part of a football club: it’s so much more than that,” said Endacott. 

“There are so many people that come down and watch, that have relatives that play football, might have grandchildren that they go and watch to play football. 

“Football is a massive part of life and especially in Royston, we’ve got such a strong youth section, community programme and it’s very inclusive in terms of everyone is involved. 

“With regards to the youth section, they all get free season tickets to come and watch the men’s side and it’s great to have so many of them down watching.  

“I don’t actually think they realise the they have on the senior side, having loads of kids down, cheering, chanting: it’s just so good having everyone involved.”

Ladbrokes, with the support of its owner Entain, has launched a multi-million pound investment programme, Pitching In, designed to support and promote grassroots sports. For more details see: https://entaingroup.com/sustainability/pitching-in/