A new community hub has opened in Wallsend as part of the Wallsend Boys Club. The hub gives a place for the community to try different sports and not just football which the club is known for. We visited the hub and spoke to those working there to see how it will benefit the community.
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00:00 The Wolves End Boys Club officially opened in 1904 and since then the club has changed
00:07 massively. From new football pitches to the building being torn down after it was damaged,
00:12 it has changed a lot. And even now more changes have been made as the Peter Olsen Community
00:17 Hub has been opened.
00:20 So the centre, or the hub, the Peter Olsen Community Hub is a game changer for the club.
00:27 We've been working entirely for four years to get to this point and what it does is it
00:33 allows us to offer more activities than just football here at Kirkley Park.
00:37 So we're hoping that we are going to be able to deliver classes around yoga, Zumba, some
00:43 martial arts, multi-sports type activities for all ages through the day, night times,
00:50 evenings, after school clubs. We want to work with local schools, local partners to really
00:56 make it a community asset.
00:57 Whilst the community hub will be used for sporting classes, it can also be used as a
01:01 centre for functions so it offers a lot more to the community of Wolves End.
01:06 But of course a big part of the club is the football and as we saw the girls teams training
01:11 on the pitch you can tell how much the club means to them. And with the support from the
01:15 lionesses becoming even bigger, Girls Foundation lead and coach Kyra said that you can see
01:20 the impact it is having on grassroots football.
01:23 Yeah definitely, I've been here for five years now and I think in that time it's really grown.
01:28 I think that's because the access is better as well, but I've just seen it on TV, seen
01:33 the success and getting rid of that stereotype because they're successful on TV has really
01:39 helped and you see girls from eight coming when they're really young or girls starting
01:43 when they're 13 so the older girls you can definitely see that they've been impacted
01:47 by the lionesses on TV.
01:49 Both John and Kyra see the hub as a really positive thing and believe it will be something
01:54 great for the community of Wolves End and beyond.
01:58 It provides a safe space to come, to be, to meet new people, to socialise, to feel part
02:03 of something and belong. It's really important for the people of Wolves End that they feel
02:09 as though they can come and use it, be part of it and help shape the future of the hub.
02:13 It's a really nice, really impressive building. Obviously we used to have a building there
02:17 that wasn't at that size or that scale so to see it up is really, really good, really
02:22 modern and you can see how it's going to be really effective for people in the area. I
02:26 think we're quite central so it can really, really help a lot of people just off the coast
02:32 road so a lot of people will come in hopefully and you can see it being used for not just
02:36 football as well, other activities and different age ranges as well.
02:40 I think having something like this isn't, like we said before, it's not just football
02:45 but having that then can bring people in for football as well and their parents will enjoy
02:51 it more as well so they'll be more keen to come down and it's somewhere they can socialise.
02:55 A big part of grassroots football is making friends so somewhere like that just to go
02:59 and sit would be really beneficial.