Footballers in the Thundersley community and beyond will benefit from a brand new 3G artificial grass pitch at Deanes Sports Centre, within Deanes School, which was officially opened at a special ceremony today (Thursday 10th October).

Officials at the Sports Centre were able to complete the project in collaboration with the South-East Essex Academy Trust (SEEAT), and with support from the Essex County FA and the Football Foundation. Community football activity took place on the pitch during the event, as did a training session involving Southend United Youth Team players.

Also in attendance were Deanes School head prefects and representatives from partner clubs Hadleigh Youth and Thundersley Rovers, as were representatives from Southend United’s Community Foundation. Desi McKeown, Executive Head at Deanes, explained that the school are very community focussed.

“Our Sports Centre is open every evening, and weekends, for community clubs to use, and this is the natural extension that we’ve been hoping for,” he said. “It’s been in the planning for quite a few years, and it’s really great to see it opening today. Whatever we can do to help the community and enhance the facilities for students here, that’s what we’re about at the Deanes and at SEEAT.”

Chief Executive Officer of the South-East Essex Academy Trust, Andrew Cooper, was delighted to see so many smiling faces at the upgraded pitch: “As you can see, we have finally got this wonderful facility, which is going to be so good for the school, but also the local community as well.”

“It’s a complete transformation. You can see this is a high-quality pitch, which we’re going to look after very carefully, and it’s just a much more professional facility. It’s just wonderful to see, and that is a long-lasting legacy. It was lovely to see the ribbon being cut by our students earlier today.”

Nick Emery, Head of Development & Investment at the Essex County FA, was also pleased to see the project come to fruition: “We’re seeing a huge growth in the game across Essex, particularly in the South Essex region. We need more and more of these 3G pitches. We’re really pleased to work with the SEEAT and the Deanes School to be able to deliver this brilliant facility.”

If you’d like to know more about facility development projects within grassroots Essex football, browse the menus above. You can also interact with @EssexCountyFA on X and search for the ‘EssexFootball’ page on Facebook.