AFC Telford United

Most of the noisy crowd of 4,215 milled excitedly around the pitch. AFC Telford United had just beaten Kendal Town 2-1 to win promotion to the Unibond Premier League. It was 7th May 2005. Four weeks later a great night was had by a 1,000 people at a civic reception held for AFC Telford Utd. Fans and sponsors cheered their local heroes and there was a great feeling of community involvement with the club. Fireworks, music and video footage of the season's highlights all added to the occasion.

So what? Twelve months before, Telford United - stalwarts of the Vauxhall Conference, previously managed by Sir Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks - had gone into liquidation with massive debts.

What happened next is a heart-warming example of true community involvement. Supporters formed a supporters trust in 11 days. The Trust then worked closely with a community partnership chaired by the local Chamber of Commerce and facilitated by the local council. Everyone had a common aim, to raise a new club from the ashes of the old. AFC Telford United was born.

The immediate problem was that the liquidator and major creditors of the old club had the lease of the Bucks Head Stadium, one of the best stadia outside the football league. And new rules from the Football Association meant that any successor to Telford United would be demoted three divisions to the Unibond League Division One.

The League set the new club a deadline of 7th August 2004 to secure its playing facilities. A tall order for a new club with no players, no manager, very little money and very limited experience of running a semi-professional football club.

But what they did have was passion, commitment and a strong community spirit. Complicated discussions with the liquidator and lawyers followed as the council acquired the lease of the stadium and the assets within it. Within a day of the deadline the keys of the Bucks Head Stadium were handed to Lee Carter, the new chairman of AFC Telford United.

Meanwhile, the club had appointed former Northern Ireland international Bernard McNally as its manager and he was recruiting players. "The importance of success on the pitch is obvious" says the Chairman, Lee Carter, "but our main priority then was simply to get someone who could build for the future. Bernard's experience, particularly of working with younger players, was just what we were looking for".

On the pitch, the team struggled initially as McNally tried to find the right blend. By the end of 2005 they were middle in the table, but had at least consolidated.

Off the pitch, the partnership was beginning to flourish. The club's captain, Sean Parrish, went into local schools to involve the town's children in the future of the club. Links were made with local residents, for many years virtually ignored by the old club. The two local colleges, New College and TCAT offered help and support. TCAT trains football stadium stewards for clubs across the country and helped significantly in that respect. Situated across the road from the stadium, they also were developing top-class sports training facilities, including a football academy, so they offered to help AFC Telford United.

Off the pitch this enabled the partnership to submit an innovative bid for funding to the Football Foundation, linking the development of a new indoor synthetic pitch in a state of the art dome at TCAT with a new multi-purpose learning centre inside the stadium. Money was also awarded for a vulnerable children's project.

The idea is to involve young people with the club as much as possible. We know from past experience that linking education directly with sport produces improved health, better social skills, improved attendance levels and improvements in academic performance. We want around 8,000 young people each year to experience the learning centre at the stadium - they're not just the future of the football club, they're the future of the town.

And it certainly seems to be working. The old club sold just four junior season tickets in its last season. Last year, the new club sold well over 100 in their first season. Local businesses have sponsored the town's children to attend matches and families have returned to the stadium as a result. Youngsters proudly wear AFC Telford United shirts. Young Telford players now feature in the first-team squad. There's a reserve team and a women's team. The club runs coaching courses for the local community and has opened its own excellence centre for growing local talent.

At the end of April, the Football Foundation (the UK's largest sporting charity) approved three grants totalling almost £1.2 million towards the partnership's development at TCAT and the stadium. The developments will cost over £2m in total

Lee Carter, granted the freedom of Telford and Wrekin for his work on this, goes misty-eyed whenever the club's anthem, 'Keeping the Dream Alive', is played. "What we have achieved in the last twelve months has been beyond our wildest dreams. I think Winston Churchill summed it up well" he says. "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it may be the end of the beginning…………".