It’s just gone one o’clock on a Thursday afternoon and Daft Punk hit ‘One More Time’ is echoing around a Dundee housing estate.
Welcome to a fitness class like no other.
Back when normal meant normal, Dundee West were working with more than 800 players from three years old through to walking and para football.
But when football pitches became a no-go area due to Covid-19, club development officer Tam McCabe and girls’ head coach Jayne Digby hit the streets to reach many more.
Three days a week the pair are out delivering socially distanced zumba, dance and fitness classes that families can join in from their own gardens.
“Football is obviously a massive sport but you’ve got people who are football experts doing dancing and they’re
dancing why?,” said McCabe.
“Because they want to get people active and people feeling good again rather than sitting at home alone and isolated.”
It’s where sport meets survival, the on-the-ground equivalent of Joe Wicks’ popular online PE classes in lockdown coming after the local club have helped dish out food and essentials to those most vulnerable.
It’s why the McDonald’s/Sunday Mail Grassroots Awards, in association with the SFA, were established in the first place.
McCabe, 26, added: “We have got things like Joe Wicks’ live fitness sessions but that is all online and a lot of families in our area don’t have wi-fi, or the technology. We’re trying to find ways to bring what is going on online to the streets.”
The Kirkton Community Larder, opened last summer to provide fresh groceries to those in need, has become a lifeline to many in this time of crisis. It’s where members of Dundee West are to be found on a Wednesday and
Thursday packing food bags.
The £1,550 raised last month via the club’s virtual race night went a long way to ensuring the service remains free.
Beyond the 720 parcels that have now been provided over the last 13 weeks are the 1,265 free lunches delivered to kids in partnership with charity Dundee Bairns and local primary schools.
Sustenance the club then supplements with the exercise classes – on top of the remote coaching and homework
challenges they continue to deliver to hundreds of their own players.
“Don’t think I ever had any dancing skills,” laughed McCabe. “I’ve just got the passion and enthusiasm.
“The kids have a laugh and a giggle between themselves but do I care? No, because they are enjoying themselves and forgetting about the difficulties of being stuck in the house.
“But the fact is these families and kids, who haven’t got anything, we’re able to provide them something to do together as a family or something that allows them to communicate with other relatives or even families that are next door to each other but have never spoken before...for me that is really rewarding.
“It is putting on a service that is about getting them active but is also doing so much more.”
For McCabe, who is also working out of the local school hub set up for key workers’ kids two days a week, it is about carving out a reputation that doesn’t live and die with the sound of a referee’s whistle.
“We don’t need kids to be coming just to be part of Dundee West because they’re playing football,” he said.
“Let’s get Dundee West out there where they could be doing zumba, they could be dancing, whatever it may be.
“Dundee West is the club name but they’re not just doing football – they want to do a hell of a lot more to make a difference.”
The Scottish FA Grassroots Awards 2020 presented by McDonald’s and the Sunday Mail will celebrate those who are vital to football in their local community.
Grassroots clubs, coaches and volunteers from any SFA region can be nominated.
Awards will be presented at local ceremonies ahead of a gala dinner at Hampden. And MailSport will showcase the local heroes every week.
Nominations close on Monday July 13 at 12 noon.
The award categories are: Best Volunteer in Youth Football, Best Volunteer in Adult Football, Best Volunteer in Girls/Women’s Football, Best Para-Football Project, Best Community Football for All Project, Best Young Volunteer, Best Community Football Club, Best
Professional Football Club in the Community.
Get nominating now at www.scottishfa.co.uk/ football-development/attractive-game/grassroots-awards/award-categories
