Spartans Football Academy

The Spartans Community Football Academy ('Spartans') is the home of Scotland's best known amateur football team and enjoys a high profile within the City of Edinburgh and beyond. Over the course of the last four years, the community aspects of the Spartans' work (including work with youth teams and the wider local community) has been consolidated and expanded into a brand new £4.7m Community Football Academy, being run as a Social Enterprise, in the heart of the communities of Pilton and Granton in the North of Edinburgh.

An investment from the Scottish Investment Fund provided a substantial amount of finance towards the total cost of the opening of the Academy and the net effect is that a number of other programmes can be operated from the one location by Spartans staff. These include a whole range of adult learning and literacy programmes; work experience placements for young people; local youth group use for events and discos; community meetings; and use in conjunction with Telford College. These programmes are all in addition to the regular Spartans FC football teams and coaching programmes.

Craig Graham, Spartans Chairman commented "This SIS funding package allows us to implement our plans for growing the work we do in North Edinburgh. We have over 1,500 people using the Academy every week across a range of sporting and learning activities and we are already delivering real benefits."