As part of the Watford FC Community Sports & Education Trust’s 30-year anniversary celebrations, a series of accounts from staff, volunteers, partners and participants have been compiled in the ‘30 Stories for 30 Years’ publication, that also includes the annual Impact Report for 2022.
All of the stories, and the Impact Report, can be viewed online HERE. Should you wish to request a hard copy, please email kristian.hitchins@watfordfc.com.
Next up is the story of a friend and writer for the Trust(s), Mike Raggett...
Back in 2003/04, I was involved in marketing the Watford Supporters Trust which aimed to secure the freehold of the ground so that we would always have football at Vicarage Road (achieved in 2005). We were for a time the fastest growing supporters’ organisation in the country.
I remember being a bit miffed when Watford FC’s Football in the Community scheme became the Watford FC Community Sports and Education Trust on achieving charitable status in 2004. We already had a Trust – the Supporters Trust – so did we need another? Would confusion reign among supporters?
Any fears were unfounded and a few years later the Supporters Trust would invest in the Community Trust’s BEST health, exercise and nutrition project for primary schools in a lasting collaboration. I met Rob Smith and he wondered if I could help him with the Trust’s annual reports as he felt, with excessive modesty, that he wasn’t a great wordsmith. I helped to write and design a series of annual reports, a corporate investor recruitment brochure and DVD package and went to photograph and write about the new Cedars Centre in Harrow for a brochure when it opened in 2012. The next few years saw a number of similar writing and editing activities with leaflets for specific programmes and more general reports.
Then in 2016 I helped with an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a series of activities and a book to commemorate 25 years of the Community Trust in 2017.
The bid was successful and I began a close working relationship with Derrick Williams whom Rob had appointed as overall project manager. With a wonderful team of volunteers we managed to interview a large number of people so that the book was not just a catalogue of the Trust’s achievements but personal accounts of how the Trust had affected people’s lives. Among the highlights were travelling to Cambridgeshire to visit the legend that is Ann Swanson who with Sir Elton John and Graham Taylor OBE laid the foundations for the ‘family club’. I was also privileged to sit down and chat with the first two football in the community officers from 1992 when it all started in earnest – John McDermott and Jimmy Gilligan – and get their perspectives on how far the Trust has come from those first steps out into the community.
We published the book early in 2018 and were thus able to dedicate it to the memory of the man mainly responsible, Graham Taylor, who had sadly passed away in January that year. As a personal note I was also delighted to be able to include a dedication to my late wife Denise Lesley who died in December 2016. She was the reason I started going to Watford matches as a season ticket holder from 1995/96 onwards. Perhaps the most poignant moment came with sharing a table with Rita Taylor and her family at the book launch in the Hogwarts Great Hall at the Harry Potter Experience. And then to my surprise I was announced as Supporter of the Season in 2019 principally for the work I had done with the Trust.
I’ve continued to do some writing, editing and reviewing and was a volunteer steward for the Trust’s initial Taylor Trek in 2022 having decided that an osteoarthritic hip might prevent me from successfully completing the course. This was another joyous occasion packing goodie bags, hanging up banners and having fun with other volunteers who love the football club and are proud to support the wonderful activities of its Community Sports and Education Trust.
