A Wishaw football club have kicked off a fundraising drive by handing out cheques to five local charities.
Wishaw Wycombe Wanderers donated a total of £3590 to Live Well Foodbank, Made4UinML2, Basics Food Lanarkshire, Chris’s House and Lanarkshire Health Board Endowment Funds.
A statement on the club’s Facebook said: “A few weeks ago our Executive Committee met to discuss the ramifications of the cancellation of our annual Sportsman’s Dinner, our biggest fundraiser of the year.
“Needless to say our discussions soon turned to the present and how we could help our local charities instead.
“We asked our teams to consider making donations to help out in these tough times.
“Not only did our teams step up to the plate but our 2003 team decided to set a challenge for each of their boys in order that they could show their appreciation and support for the NHS in particular.”
Wishaw Wycombe, formed 25 years ago, now have 18 teams of both boys and girls as well as a successful amateur team.
Club president Alex Richardson was delighted with the way all of the sides came together to help local charities.
“Over the years we go cap in hand to businesses and other sponsors so we felt it was only right to help charities at this time,” said Alex.
“The 2003 team had said that they were looking to do something for the NHS and local foodbanks.
“We also have a long-standing link-up with Chris’s House so we thought it would only be right to give them a donation as well.”
With all youth and amateur football in cold storage due to the coronavirus crisis, Alex also revealed the extent of some of the young players are going to in order to keep things going during lockdown.
He added: “Some of the teams have got their own Facebook pages and have seen some videos of the players doing some skills.
“One of the teams had even set a challenge of running a marathon in a week.
“One of the players in our amateur team, Jordan Dunn, is a personal trainer and has been doing online sessions on Zoom and the players have been doing their workouts in the house.
“It has been good to see so many videos and other wee things which has helped during this time.
“You can only imagine what this lockdown would have been like 20 or 30 years ago.”
