The younger players of a community football club are staging a sponsored walk to kickstart an appeal to provide a badly needed all-weather pitch to replace its often unusable ground.

Hatherleigh Football Club and Hatherleigh Youth FC has launched an online Go Fund Me appeal to raise an initial £25,000 to buy a plot of land on which the artificial ground will be built.

The town’s youth football club is organising the new ‘Big Sponsored Walk’ in the New Year to secure £2,000 towards the appeal to help the club purchase land for a new football pitch, allowing over 170 youth players to train locally year-round.

From Thursday to Saturday, January 2-4, 2025, coaches, parents, and players will walk 60 miles from Hatherleigh to Exeter, stopping at 20 pitches and ‘scoring goals’ along the way. The walk finishes at St James Park, home of Exeter City FC.

Currently, the club relies on hiring costly pitches outside the town, requiring players and families to travel long distances. This new pitch would significantly benefit the club and local community.

The club offers football for players from five years to adult, with boys, girls and mixed teams in the North Devon League and the men's team in the Exeter & Devon League first division. The club is over 100 years old with 170 registered youth players.

Simon Lassam, club spokesman, said the youth football club is spending over £6,000 hiring pitches this winter. It also means players and parents have to travel further afield every week – some travel almost 50 miles to get to training and back. Some players struggle to get to training at all because their families cannot get them there.”

A new pitch would also allow this expenditure to be spent directly on the club, while the new ground would be available for all local community sports and games groups.

Simon added: “A new all-weather pitch will be available for any local team, clubs and groups, and should be one of the best all-weather facilities in the area. We are not the only football club struggling to find good pitches to train and play on, so when our teams are not using the pitches, other teams in the area should be interested in booking it. All of which generates an income for the football club and allows us to invest further in football in Hatherleigh for current and future players.”

The initial £25,000 will enable the current landowner and the football clubs to complete the sale as soon as possible. The club will then start fundraising again to create the new pitch.

“We’re a friendly, local club providing opportunities for hundreds of young people to have fun playing football, to make lifelong friendships and to fall in love with the game so that as many of them as possible continue to play once they reach adulthood.”