AN under-12 football team in Cornwall will be playing with new nets when the season resumes, thanks to a leading regional builder.

Polperro AFC’s under-12 squad have been granted £1,000 from Persimmon Homes Cornwall’s Building Futures programme targeting support to under 18s in the categories of health, education and arts and sport.

Matt Pengelly, who applied for funding on behalf of the juniors, said: ‘We are all very grateful to Persimmon Homes for the funding.

‘We rely on weekly subs from players and regular fundraising events run by parents and managers – we need to raise in the region of £2,000 per year to survive, but COVID-19 has stopped revenues totally.

‘We are badly in need of new goals for our U12 team as ours were damaged in storms, and we also need to do some work on the clubhouse to upgrade our toilets to provide disabled access and generally upgrade facilities, and we will be putting our funding towards that.’

Jane Cartwright, sales director for Persimmon Homes Cornwall, said: ‘We are fortunate to be able to support groups in the communities in which we are building and are glad to be able to support the junior footballers.’

Building Futures is delivered through the Persimmon Charitable Foundation in partnership with Team GB, the British Olympic Association, and the company enlisted the help of World Championship silver medallist and Tokyo Olympic Games and Team GB hopeful Laviai Nielsen (track and field) to launch the scheme.

A total of 128 grants of £1,000 will be awarded across Persimmon’s 32 regional businesses to improve local facilities and the delivery of vital community projects. Three initiatives will go on to win £100,000 each through a national online public vote. The winners will be named at a gala dinner for finalists in October.

In each sector – education & arts, health and sport – as well as the £100,000 first prize, there will be a £50,000 second prize and a £20,000 third prize, while a further 87 shortlisted projects will each receive £5,000.