A new Glasgow football centre has officially opened following a huge transformation.

FAREPlay Stepford, formerly Stepford Sports Park, in the city's East End, is now home two full-sized 4G football pitches - converted from two smaller grass pitches - and five five-aside pitches with new floodlights and fencing.

Operated by Easterhouse social enterprise FARE Scotland, the centre is designed to be a social and leisure hub for people in the community.

The new facility will help the charity to realise its mission of supporting people to have an active lifestyle, regardless of age, circumstance or ability.

It was upgraded thanks to a £1.6 million funding package through Social Investment Scotland and with the help of consultants from Sports Labs who advised on technical aspects of the pitch construction, with work carried out by Sportex.

Glasgow Times:

Glasgow Times:

Jimmy Wilson, CEO of FARE, said: “Our new FAREPlay facility at Edinburgh Road will help us to reach even more people in the local community and encourage them to live a healthy and active life through sport and exercise. It will also play a big role in our employment and training programmes, providing valuable opportunities for 16-24 year olds.

“While it offers much more than just football pitches, we’ve taken great care to create top-class facilities.

"The new 4G pitch, for instance, will be much more useful and accessible than a traditional grass pitch, which can be tricky to maintain with our wet Scottish weather.

"Ultimately, we want to promote wellbeing by increasing the number of local people participating in sport and physical activity, and FAREPlay Stepford will help us with the tools to make that happen.”

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Councillor Ruairi Kelly added: “This is a fantastic example of community empowerment leading to much-improved facilities and services for people locally and supporting employment and training opportunities for young people in the community."