MARK Fogarty believes Alvechurch’s recent partnership with Nathan Redmond’s Emerging Talent Centre will make a difference to people’s lives.
Fogarty is Alvechurch’s Sporting Director and previously worked with Redmond during the winger’s time as a Birmingham City player.
And following the announcement of the partnership earlier this week, Fogarty hopes the subsidised courses provided through the Talent Centre at The Hayes will benefit those who need it most.
Fogarty said: “One of the biggest things about this is, we wanted to make it accessible and affordable for as many boys and girls as we could.
“You’ll see the cost and go ‘wow, how can they do it for that cheap?’ Nathan has made it affordable by subsidising the courses.
“Although we’re Alvechurch, we’re on the border of South Birmingham. Northfield and Kings Norton are two of the biggest left behind communities in the UK and we feel we can really make a difference in people’s lives.
“The Emerging Talent Centres’s are going to be led by Kevin Redmond who was a baton bearer for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“We hope to have the first team goalkeeping coach and manager working on the courses plus an Alvechurch player and two of our young Ability Counts coaches.
“Nathan has promised that if he is in the country and is available he will come down and present trophies or host a question and answer session even if it is on Zoom.”
Fogarty helped develop strong community sections at both Solihull Moors and Leamington and hopes this partnership will be the first of many in his role at Alvechurch.
Fogarty added: “It’s fantastic news for our football club, I go back quite a long way back with Nathan [Redmond] from when I was working at Birmingham City, he was a player there and I was coaching him.
“Over the years, I became friends with him as he moved from club to club and kept in touch with his mum Michelle – the Redmond’s are one of the nicest families you could ever wish to meet.
“She was telling me about Nathan’s plans for the future, he wanted to get involved in some sort of academy or football club.
“I wanted to do something different and this is the culmination of years of talking.
“This is the first thing that we’re doing under the Alvechurch FC Community Foundation which is a separate entity to the football club although it is inextricably linked.
“Doing things like this are going to become more and more common place, I just want to thank the Redmond family and Nathan in particular for what he’s done for Alvechurch and for choosing us and our vision.”
