We’re the best and liveliest Community Club in Perth
When it comes to Community Football in Perth, nobody does it better than Jeanfield Swifts! A bold claim, which we back up with solid evidence of positive outcomes for Women and Girls, local North Muirton and Muirton residents, Asylum Seekers and many other groups. Watch our video below to see some examples of our work.
What we want to do next
We want to do more of the above. Lots more. But there is one thing stopping us: a facility we can use all year round. We’re also pushing the limits of what the current grass pitches at Riverside can sustain in terms of usage. In short, we need a facility that lets us do more, more often and more effectively.
We’re also aware that we occupy an area of land that is identified as greenspace for the community. Access to this land for football is controlled by Perth & Kinross Council, but they’re no longer in a position to maintain it for this purpose. That’s why we supply our own goalposts, cut and mark out our own pitches. That all means that if you’re not a member of Jeanfield Swifts, you have access to grass areas but not to the purpose they’re intended for. That needs to change.
Our intention is to create two new 3G all-weather pitches. One will be on the current Stadium Pitch, and will continue to be used by the men’s and women’s first teams. As it’s a more hard-wearing surface than grass, it can be used by many other teams for matches and training too. The second pitch is our Community Pitch, modelled on the brilliant concept developed by The Spartans in Edinburgh. It will be used for games and training by our teams, and it will be available for hire by other sports clubs. But at key times of the day it will also be free to use by members of our community. An open-gate policy that will mean all you need to bring is a ball (and if you don’t have one of those, well, we can probably help there too). So instead of having to ask us to mark out a pitch, cut the grass and lend you a goal, you can just turn up with your family or pals.
We also want to expand the floorspace available to us internally, creating more meeting spaces and useful offices. And finally the community changing spaces which have been there for around twenty years are now a bit long in the tooth. They don’t meet the expectations and needs of a diverse user group and we want to upgrade them to be fit for purpose.
Reduced footprint
As we condense our activity down from four 11-a-side pitches and one seven-a-side pitch to just two new 3G all-weather surfaces, we will be in a position to open up some of the greenspace for other uses. An area previously earmarked for football but without goalposts, marked lines or mown grass can now be transformed according to the needs and desires of the local community. This area outside our complex will no longer be ours to control. But we want to give the community the opportunity now to tell us and the council what they want to do with it.
Improved access
You might have noticed we’ve already instigated some improvements. Thanks to funding through Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust and Paths for All, we were successful in a bid to install a new footpath linking Riverside Stadium to North Inch Community Campus. As a result, you can now access the stadium from all directions on foot or by bike, without needing to negotiate the traffic bottleneck at the entry to the car park. Further access improvements can also be built into the ultimate design of our new facility.
Your ideas are important!
Our Community Consultation is there to listen to your views and inform our plans. Please keep an eye on this website for further details as we move forward, subscribe to our Newsletter to hear about news first hand, and attend our public meetings on 1 and 15 April to make your voice known.
