Photo: Sport England

Don’t just watch football now you have more chances to join in. New lottery funding means that 200 more young footballers will have a chance to join Bethnal Green United Football Club.

The club is just one of the community sports projects in ELL boroughs that will benefit from thousands of pounds of new funding.

A selection of sports clubs and schemes in Bow, Lewisham and Bethnal Green have been awarded the money through Sport England, the government agency responsible for sport.

Ability Bow, will benefit from £9,350 , to help encourage those with disabilities and others who have never used a gym before to take part in their inclusive fitness sessions.

Bethnal Green United Football Club, based at Mile End stadium, has secured £9.420 to create three new teams so that 200 more young footballers can get involved at the club.

The Lewisham Young Women Resource Project (LYWRP), has been awarded £7,000 of funding to run a scheme encouraging more young women to play sports. The money will pay for coaching fees and equipment, and will also help train volunteers after funding has ended.

Manager of the LYWRP, Phillipa Wall said: “Getting funding has become harder, so we are happy to have been awarded money from Sport England”. The Catford based project called ‘Miss Sporty’ is one of the few organisations focused specifically on sport for young women. “We encourage the girls to be healthy. We focus on them maintaining exercise, monitoring fitness, combined with a healthy lifestyle. We also hope to foster a long term interest in sport.” The Miss Sporty project teaches a wide variety of programs including dance, spinning and combat training.

Sports England awards funding to grassroots and community sports projects across the country, aiming to provide everyone with an opportunity to excel at any sport.

A total of £142, 028 has been awarded to sports programmes across London, in a project that aims to get one million people playing sport as legacy of the 2012 Olympics

Sport England’s Chair, Richard Lewis said: “This investment is opening up great opportunities for local people to get involved in sport. I urge everone who’s got out of the sporting habit to take a fresh look at what’s going on in your area, and give sport another try.”