SportsAid at Crightons isn’t just one day every two years

Crightons of Peterborough are investing in the future in more ways than one. Not only are they investing in innovative cars and processes, as well as a real forward looking business but they’re investing in the future of young people in the Peterborough region.

The initial idea was to get youngsters to write in and say how they would use an award of £1000 to further their sporting career. It soon gained momentum and every year more and more youngsters applied and it become more widely known.

The annual award was decided by a judging panel consisting of a local MP, local business people, a football team manager and other local people involved in the Peterborough community.

The standard of the young sports stars has been steadily increasing to the point where it was virtually impossible to judge between them - the result being that last year three awards were made as the quality was so high. All this was made possible by the generosity of other local businesses that, along with Crightons, donated time and money.

It wasn’t long before the Crightons Sports Star of the Future Award came to the attention of the SportsAid committee who took a particular interest in its proceedings as it seemed to be aiming to achieve the same ends … about 70% of the medal winners at the Athens Olympics were supported by SportsAid when they were youngsters, it’s a fabulous process for finding and nurturing sporting talent.

The SportsAid body were impressed enough with the award scheme to ask Crightons to come under their wing.  However, it did seem to mean that they would then have to ‘have their hand out’ asking for funding.

The SportsAid body considered this and suggested they all ‘fly’ under the same banner but Crightons would have their own bank account and would hold their own purse strings so that they would still be able to make awards locally as they saw fit. This system works very well and it means that they are now a National Charity with full local autonomy.

Due to its expansion and success the award scheme has now become the Peterborough SportsAid Foundation currently raising in excess of £20,000 annually … but there’s’ a lot more potential to be realised yet. With their great and supportive committee behind them the sky really is the limit.

There are further improvements planned for 2008 to give youngsters’ access to physiotherapy, sports training, sports psychology training and all manner of additional help to ensure they make the very best of themselves in the sporting world.

Crightons of Peterborough also sponsor Nassington Cricket Club Acedemy youth side, which means there are approximately seventy youngsters playing Cricket every weekend of the season … What they would be doing otherwise nobody really knows, they may all be upright citizens with no temptation to get into mischief, or they may not. You’ll also see Peterborough Rugby under 8’s sponsored by Crightons so at some point soon, it’d be marvellous to see a world champion rising from one of these local sporting arenas … we’ll keep you posted!