Crawley Town footballers enjoy training session with school children as they give away 1,200 shirts

We joined them at Bewbush Academy School, which was the flagship school on the route, to see how the children reacted to receiving the early Christmas present.

There was excitement on all the children’s faces as they got to have a kick around with some of the Crawley Town stars including Ashley Nadesan, Nick Tsaroulla and Kwesi Appiah.

Club mascot Reggie even joined in for a pass or two.

Many people attended the event at Bewbush Academy School including Crawley Town players and staff, representatives from The People’s Pension and the teaching staff from the school.

David Leake, assistant headteacher at Bewbush Academy said: “We always try as a school to connect with the local clubs as much as possible. Crawley Town Football Club and the Foundation have provided coaching here for quite a number of years now and a big part of our curriculum is getting children connected with their locality and foster that sense of pride in their local football team..

“We still have a lot of children who think football is a TV show and a game you play on a Playstation but more and more this year we have got free tickets and sent children to games and this is part of that.

“They have been putting their shirts on in the classroom and they are buzzing. They think it’s an early Christmas present.

“But I think the most excited they were was when Reggie arrived.”

Jordan Tunnicliffe, Crawley Town defender, said: “It’s nice to get into the community and do something like this for the kids with Chritsmas time coming up.

“Hopefully they will become Crawley Town fans and the gates will start rising and the team will start to do well.

“If they go to games their parents will take them and that’s two or three extra fans and if they enjoy themselves with the stuff we put on at the ground hopefully they will become lifelong Crawley Town fans.”

Stella Beale, Group Marketing Director from The People’s Pension, said: “We’ve done this for the past four years, giving away a total of 4,000 shirts to local school children.

“This time around, we’ve given 1,200 shirts. We see this as a part of our investment in the community with our sponsor Crawley Town Football Club.

“Football shirts for school initiative, allows us to give something back to the community and brings excitement to the children.”

Alex Watts, Revenue Manager at Crawley Town Football Club said: “We have 1,200 shirts to give away to Crawley schools. This year we are giving the shirts to Year 1 students and it will be our fourth year doing it.”

“We’ve given shirts to a record number of schools in Crawley with Bewbush Academy being our flagship school. “

“This year is a record for us, every year we improve on it. We’ve roped in Reggie to help us give shirts out all day. This wouldn’t be possible without The People’s Pension.”

“Great opportunity to make football more accessible in Crawley.”

If your child has received a Crawley Town Football Shirt, you can send us a picture of them in it at [email protected]