Town's new community outreach programme offers 10,000 free tickets to children and families in the local area.
In collaboration with STFC Football in the Community Foundation, and TrustSTFC, Swindon Town is thrilled to offer children from the local area the chance to come down to The County Ground and cheer on the reds, with a parent, for free. Participants will also see discounted follow up tickets.
As a community club, the next generation of Town fans are vital to the health of Swindon Town, and everyone here at SN1 is very excited to give local children the chance to support their local team. Perhaps they, and their families, might come back and become Town fans in the future, growing the club's community presence.
Swindon Town would like to thank the STFC Community Foundation and the TrustSTFC for helping the club to launch this initiative and for their ongoing support.
HOW IT WORKS
For each home game, we select around three schools, and three grassroots clubs per game to partake in this offer. Once a school or grassroots club is selected for a game, we send out a letter with a code and a link to buy tickets - giving each child access to claim one adult, and one child's free ticket. Each School and/or grassroots team is allocated 150 tickets for their selected game.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Schools or grassroots clubs can express their interest in being a part of the ticket initiative by emailing brad@stfcfoundation.com with the name of their school/club and a lead contact for the group.
*Interest has been high in this initiative and as a result, all matchdays have been fully allocated for this season*
Swindontownfc.co.uk spoke exclusively to key members of the behind-the-scenes team here at The County Ground, who gave their thoughts on the importance of this scheme.
Rob Angus - Swindon Town CEO:
"We are pleased to be working in conjunction with STFC Community Foundation and TrustSTFC on our youth ticketing initiatives, where we have given away c10k free tickets to local schoolchildren and those participating with youth football clubs. This is followed up with heavily discounted tickets for those families that do attend.
"We believe It is really important that we engage with local schools and youth football clubs to encourage sporting participation and to build up the next generation of Town fans. We hope these initiatives encourage more children to get into football and to come along and support the Town with their families. We know that engaging our local community and the next generation of Town fans takes time so this will be a permanent focus area as we look to grow our fanbase and pack the County Ground. COYR".
Jon Holloway - Head of STFC Community Foundation:
"Swindon Town FC sits in the heart of Swindon and plays an important role in bringing the community together. This FREE Ticket initiative will give the thousands of children and families the opportunity to experience a live match at their local professional football club and hopefully, this experience will encourage them to return to the County Ground for future matches. Over 800 FREE tickets are being distributed for every home league match and this is the biggest ticket initiative the football club has ever delivered. We are very proud to support Swindon Town and we hope that this project will see the next generation of young Swindon Town supporters cheering on their local club for years to come."
Mike Welsh - Honorary President of TrustSTFC:
"The initiative has had a brilliant start. We have brought more than 30 local Schools on board as well as several youth organisations. At the core of the initiative is a free ticket approach that enables children and parents to come to live matches rather than just getting their football on television.
"We are following up the initial free tickets with a cheaper ticket offer so that children and parents can continue coming to the County Ground. TrustSTFC and the Community Foundation have worked with many schools in Swindon and the surrounding areas for several years and this has included Swindon Town players and legends such as Don Rogers and John Trollope visiting schools and meeting pupils".
