Southend United Community & Educational Trust have won The Football Foundation Community Club of the Year award at the 2010 Football League Awards incorporating FourFourTwo's Top 50 Football League Players. Southend United are joint winners of this Community award alongside Watford.
The club received the award at a gala dinner at Grosvenor House, Park Lane on Sunday evening in front of 900 attendees from clubs, sponsors and the football industry.
Southend United's 'Community & Educational Trust' has produced a stunning range of activities for their community over the past year with over 30 different schemes and projects. During 2009 over 40,000 individuals took part in the various initiatives delivered by the Trust, covering all ages. The Trust's wide range of activities is capped by their flagship 'Goals' project which has produced great results, and led to a nomination for 'Best Project by a Professional Sports Team' category at the 2009 Beyond Sport Awards.
As well as being concerned about the health and education of the participants of the schemes, the Trust has also offered additional training and development support for their employees. Examples of such training include makaton sign language, time and project management, IT skills and general sports and fitness qualifications. The Southend United Community & Educational Trust clearly understands and demonstrates how to operate effectively and offer sustainable, long term benefits to their local community whilst producing outstanding results.
Steve Goodsell, Southend United said; "It's a big fillip to us to get the award, especially with things not going so well on the pitch at the moment. The award will give everyone at the club a boost and it's just reward for a lot of hard work over the four years that we've spent turning what was a fairly typical Football in the Community scheme into a really high quality community facility offering programmes for people aged from four to 94."
Commenting on the 2010 Football League Awards, Football League Chairman, Lord Mawhinney, said: "Once again, these awards have given us the opportunity to honour those clubs and individuals whose commitment to the game or their local community goes beyond the call of duty.
"The fifth Football League Awards have been an enormous success, and I congratulate all the winners on their achievements."
The number one spot in the FourFourTwo Top 50 Football League Players went to Newcastle United's striker Kevin Nolan. Jermaine Beckford of Leeds United was the highest ranked Coca-Cola League 1 player and Craig Dawson of Rochdale the best from Coca-Cola League 2. The full list of The Top 50 Football League Players can be found either in the May issue of FourFourTwo which is on sale now, or on the FourFourTwo website www.fourfourtwo.com.
To find out more about The Football League Awards, including all the photos and news from the evening, please visit www.footballleagueawards.com.
