Grassroots Essex football clubs are being advised to start the Football Foundation ‘Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund’ (GPMF) application process now to have potential funding ready for their end-of-season renovations.

The GPMF provides six-year tapered grants to help eligible organisations enhance or sustain the quality of their grass pitches. The Foundation, alongside the Essex County FA, are on a mission to transform the quality of playing surfaces, and grass pitch improvement is a key target in our #MovingForward 2028 Strategy.

A key part of this ambition, the GFMF provides a grant to help clubs sustain pitches already at a ‘good’ level and enhance pitches which are either considered ‘poor’ or ‘basic’. Applicants must have initially received an assessment report through the Foundation’s PitchPower app, which recommends the maintenance works required before applying.

Essex County FA Facilities & Investment Officer, Carrie Barfoot, highlights that there is assistance available: “Now is a great time to get involved in the Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund programme. We would need to start the process by getting a PitchPower assessment done on a club’s grass pitches. A PitchPower report would provide vital information on the health of these pitches, and also recommendations for what needs to be done to improve the quality of them.”

“If a club needs support doing their report… we can help! That could include support with writing the application, or just further information. There are user guides, or we have a support pitch advisor who can visit and help clubs put the first application through to the Grounds Management Association [GMA]. The Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund is a six-year programme. Starting the process now means you could have potential funding ready for your end-of-season renovations.”

Lawford FC have recently benefitted from the Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund, and Chairperson, John Duchars, explained: “We’ve always taken a lot of care over our pitches. They’ve always been in good condition but, when Covid hit, we found it very hard to actually get the people to do the treatments. Weeds came through, and the grass coverage suffered. Then, with the Football Foundation funding, we were able to heavily invest back into our pitches.”

“Once we got the grant itself, we were able to bring in a contractor to complete lots of different work: aeration, decompaction of the soil, re-seeding, weed killers, fertilisers. The treatment is extensive from top to bottom, and that’s been reflected in the quality of the pitches now.”

“The PitchPower report’s been very useful. We have to do an inspection of our pitches two times a year. It’s given us the focus that we need to check weeds, grass coverage, root depth and whether there’s any thatch on the pitch as well. It’s very useful in the sense that we can see the progress. Now all of our pitches - we’ve got five pitches here - are all scoring a high 89% from the GMA.”

“I found the application itself quite easy. We get a lot of compliments from people visiting the site, and the state of the pitches, amongst everything else. I would sincerely recommend the funding, because it’s an opportunity to really improve the quality of the football for the players themselves, and, after all, that’s our motivation.”

Please click here to find out more about the Football Foundation’s PitchPower app. You can also learn more about the plans Lawford FC have for year three in the video below.