Speaker Ian Ormondroyd CEO of Bradford. City FC Community Foundation

Ian is a former professional footballer, playing at a high level, for Aston Villa (currently 4th in the Premier league), Leicester and, not least, 125 times for BCFC. His height, 6 ft. 6 in., no doubt helped around the goal mouth! He has held various jobs with Bradford City FC Community Foundation (BCCF) since joining them 1999 after his playing career was finished.

BCCF started off as a channel to encourage football in the community. It started in 1988. All clubs in the league have similar organisations.

When Ian started there were just 2 staff. Some of clubs have really big foundation that employ a lot of people. He gave an example of Manchester United Foundation. If you look at their accounts on Companies House the turnover in 2023 was just short of £7 million with 100 employees.

BFCC runs as a nonprofit Charity. There last filed accounts to 30 June 2022 show a £1.23 million turnover with 25 employees and 8 trustees. Initially it wasn’t a charity but became one in 2007. The 8 trustees check the work of BCCF every 4 month.

The main work of the organisation is coaching in schools. But now they are also going into primary to talk about knives drugs and healthy relationships. They also organise Disability teams for both adult and children. They also have “Kicks” football sessions in deprived areas to get kids off streets.

They are also moving more outside football to do things that they feel Bradford need. For example, they run girls only football courses in school holidays. In the Easter holidays 42 girls enrolled far exceeding their expectations. They also have a City hub cafe where they hold different activities such as a Dementia cafe 11am to 1pm one day a week. They also have a Food Truck Thursday 5pm to 7pm giving food to the homeless. They also work with MIND Bradford.

They are running a BTEC sports diploma course that lasts for 2 years where participants do 12 hours per week. There are 52 currently on the course, and 2 of the staff are qualified teachers for the course. These same teachers teach Primary school teachers how to teach P.E.

They are primarily self-funding from the fees they charge for various activities but they do take donations.