JOHN Grogan, MP for Keighley and Ilkley, will officially open a new all-weather pitch and improved grass pitches for Ilkley Town FC on Sunday (February 4) at 1.30pm, thanks to a grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund.

The grant has enabled the club to install a state-of-the-art third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP) and reconfigure their existing grass pitches. This will enable the club to provide better scheduling flexibility for training and fixtures, as well as support them in offering community sport during evenings and weekends.

Other users of the facilities at Ben Rydding Sports Club, Coutances Way, Ilkley, will include Ilkley Grammar School and Burley Trojans FC. Additionally, West Riding FA plan to use the pitches as a hub site and will support the club in developing the local game. As a result, overall sport participation on-site is expected to increase by 77 per cent.

The project was made possible thanks to a £376,613 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation.

Since 2000, the Football Foundation Funding Partners’ investment has provided 534 grants worth £19.8m towards grassroots sports projects worth over £39.3m across the whole of West Riding.

Founded in 2000, the Football Foundation is the largest sports charity in the UK funded by the Premier League, The FA and Government, via Sport England. It develops new and refurbished grassroots sports facilities in order to improve the quality and experience of playing sport at the grassroots level. Since it was launched in 2000, the Foundation has awarded around 15,000 grants worth more than £580m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £800m – £1.4bn of investment into the grassroots game.