A North Belfast football club has said they are in desperate need of their own training facilities to grow as a team.
Grove United FC currently train at Shore Road Playing Fields and Loughside Park, but say these facilities aren't suitable for training, as there are often holes in the ground, floodlights that don't work well, and there is often dog poo on the pitches.
Training can be particularly tricky during winter months, with teams having to travel out of their local area to the likes of Valley Leisure Centre and Mallusk Playing Fields for more suitable facilities.
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Members of the team have said these issues mean players often move to other clubs nearby that have better training facilities.
The club currently has eleven teams in different age groups as well as two senior teams, but they are concerned that a lack of suitable pitches may halt their success.
Belfast Live spoke with Neil Thompson and club chairman Brian Boyd, who highlighted some of the issues the club has been facing in acquiring pitch space and how it has impacted them.
Brian Boyd has been involved with Grove United for over 40 years, but has been club chairman for the past 13 years. In that time, he said they have been fighting for better facilities without resolution.
He said: "This has been ongoing for about 12 years where I've been chasing better facilities. Every other area within Belfast has access to three or four different 4G pitches.
"But if you look below the Antrim Road coming down the Shore Road, into the lower North Belfast area, there's no facilities at all except Crusaders Football Club which is privately owned. There's nothing Council run to accommodate the people of lower North Belfast.
"We've waited far too long. We're trying to help the community more, we're going into schools. North Belfast is one of the worst places in Europe for suicide and we're trying to help the community, we're trying to get kids off the streets and actively doing sport to get them away from anti-social behaviour."
Brian said Belfast City Council has now put in place funding for changing facilities at Shore Road Playing Fields and they're waiting for planning permission for this.
As well as this, the Council are putting forward a proposal for a 4G pitch on the site, but will still need to access funding to bring it to life.
Neil Thompson is a coach and the Mental Health Champion for Grove United. He said by having their own facilities in a centralised hub, they'll be able to focus further on their ethos of well-being.
"This part of lower North Belfast is very deprived," Neil explained.
"The ground we're using at the minute isn't suitable. We're using a farmer's field for the kids teams then during the winter we're having to send them up to Newtownabbey at the Valley.
"Loughside has been run down something shocking. You have five and six year olds training on a pitch that's full of big holes and then there's dog poo, and they're letting the flood lights go out.
"We would love something on this road. We're a family run club and are getting more and more successful, but we're sort of the victims of our own success.
"We're doing great things for the community but we could do so much more if the powers that be would help us out. The lack of facilities is what's holding us back."
He said their lack of a decent pitch is currently turning players away from the team towards clubs further away that have better facilities.
Neil added: "We're serving all sides of the local community with our teams, including people just moving into the area including asylum seekers.
"We would lose a lot of local kids to other nearby times due to our lack of facilities, and I would rather they stay in their own communities."
He said the club would even be happy to share a pitch with another local club, so long as all their teams could train from the same area.
"We definitely need something sorted especially for the kids in this area," he added. "The earlier you get them the better, the earlier you get them off the streets the better.
"Football is great for people's well-being. It would just be super to have all our teams centralised, at the minute we have teams training in all different places, but it would be nice to have a hub to do everything from."
A spokesperson for Belfast City Council said: "Belfast City Council has committed £950,000 under its Belfast Investment Fund to the development of a new 4 team changing pavilion for Malgrove (Malachians and Grove United FCs) at Shore Road Playing Fields.
"A planning application for a wider sporting hub proposal at the site which will include the changing pavilion as well as a new 3G pitch is due to be submitted in Autumn 2022. Belfast City Council is continuing to work closely with the groups to secure funding for the wider sporting hub proposal."
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