We are delighted to announce that Maidenbower Colts have won our We Only Do Positive Respect Award as part of The FA and McDonald's Grassroots Football Awards.

The awards aim to recognise and reward volunteers, match officials, clubs and leagues across the county who have made a difference to grassroots football in their local community.

Maidenbower Colts wanted to highlight and bring into discussion The FA Respect Campaign and the ‘We Only Do Positive’ message. To do this, each player, across all the age groups, were invited to enter a Respect poster competition.

The club were looking for designs to promote respect within the football club and grassroots football as a whole. They emailed each parent with guidelines whilst using it as an opportunity to attach The FA’s Respect flyers for players and spectators.

Every player who entered a poster was awarded a Maidenbower Colts 'Proud to be Colts' pin badge. They suggested that they might like to wear these badges on their school bags or coats in the hope this would help to create a community of Colts players in the playground bridging the ages. 

The posters the club received were truly fantastic, with each of them showing support for The FA’s Respect campaign. The posters submitted really captured the message that the club wanted to put out there.

The posters were judged by the club’s Chairman, who was incredibly impressed with each entry, and found it an exceptionally difficult task to pick the 4 (equal) winners, due to the great effort that each player had put into their poster.

One of the winners (an under-12s player) wrote on their poster, which really captured the reason the club decided to run the competition: "Football isn’t just a sport, it’s an art, a family, it brings people together, it embraces the next generation. But, for football to stay open to all members of society, it needs to be FAIR. 

“There will always be room for passion, kindness and respect, but never for racism or sexism. Nobody is better because they are white or black, Asian or African, girl or boy. Never compare like that. So when you play your next match: Thank the referee, shake hands and accept. Just be nice!"

To find out more about The FA and McDonald's Grassroots Football Awards please contact:

Awards
E: Awards@SussexFA.com