An 11-a-side football match was held to collect items for a Glasgow foodbank.
OpenReach and Glasgow Saints descended on Glasgow Green for the friendly match last month. The goods collected were due to be donated to Everlasting Foodbank in Dennistoun.
READ NEXT: The incredible story of the Glasgow's Easterhouse football academy
With the Saints arranging a pitch on Glasgow Green and a referee for the match, OpenReach fans and players based in the company’s newly revamped Broomielaw HQ were asked to donate to the foodbank, with office workers handing in hundreds of essential items.
Saints players Gurubir Bains, Greg Bow, Darren Scobbie and Graeme Crawford visited the office this week to collect a whopping 18 bagfuls of donations from Katie Milligan, chair of the Openreach Scotland Board.
Glasgow Saints’ Laurie Keith said: “We’re working hard with OpenReach to make our diversity partnership a huge success on and off the pitch, and the charity friendly was the latest idea.
"It was an enjoyable, fun day for a great cause and we were overwhelmed by the number of donations that came in.
"Everyone’s a winner.”
OpenReach launched a 12-month partnership with Glasgow Saints FC in May as part of a project to support four inclusive football clubs across the UK.
The club, founded in 2020, aims to help tackle isolation and food poverty and is also engaged in local social initiatives.
The club’s motto is ‘football for everyone’. Players and coaches are from various cultural, religious and financial backgrounds, with asylum seekers and refugees among those in the squad.
Players and staff commit to one hour of volunteering each month and take part in fundraisers for good causes in Glasgow.
OpenReach team captain Graeme Heron said: “We got beat in the end with a respectable 5:2 win for the Saints, but we’re looking forward to a rematch.
"The Saints work hard to promote the message that football is for everyone, and we couldn’t agree more.”
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here