New all weather pitch in Horsham opened by former international and  BHA FC player - video Dailymotion

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Ian Straw, Headteacher of The Forest School, Comptons Ln, Horsham at the opening of the new all-weather pitch with special guest Gordon Greer of Brighton and Hove Albion FC.

Transcript

00:00Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon for our opening. It's really

00:04important for us, one of the things that we're really passionate about our school

00:09is that you know we refer to ourselves as the Forrest family and everyone being

00:14a member of our Forrest family and part of our community and that's really

00:17important to us that so many of you are able to come here today and join us for

00:22our opening. As always with these things I want to say some particular thank yous

00:27and I will start with a huge thank you first of all to both Ben and to Gordon

00:33who have joined us today from Brighton and Hove Albion for the opening. Ben is

00:39somebody who I've got to know at Brighton and Hove Albion and Gordon has very very

00:44kindly at the last minute stepped into Paul Barber's shoes and has joined us

00:51today and has just come off the back of delivering what I was told by Mr.

00:56Parsons is an absolutely inspirational assembly to lots of our kids here at

01:02this school and not only just about football but about life in general about

01:07the importance of keeping going through the good and the bad times so it's

01:11amazing assembly and lots of really interesting questions raised by the kids

01:14as well not just who did you play for which is probably the type of question I

01:19might come up with but lots of really well thought-out questions. So a huge

01:23thank you to the pair of you for being here today we're really honoured to have

01:26you and actually we're really honoured to have lots of you here today as part

01:30of our Forest family and as interested guests and people that follow our school.

01:35You might know over the past six years we've done a lot to our school we've

01:40been working hard to make it an inspirational place to be a 1950s

01:46building that maybe doesn't feel quite so much a 1950s building and one of the

01:50things that I'm particularly passionate about is giving our kids opportunities

01:54that they wouldn't maybe get in other secondary schools and hopefully you'll

01:58see that as you go out onto the Astro later on. We've been doing this for the

02:02past six years and there's some very important people in the room that I'd

02:05like to thank that have been behind us every step of the way while we've been

02:09doing that incredible journey that we've been on. So Graham Olway who is stood

02:15over there and Lee Hunnigan I've sort of spoken to today already but actually

02:20from pretty much my first week in this school Graham and Lee have been on the

02:25phone on the other end of the phone having an ear bashing from me about

02:29leaky roofs about things not going the way we want it to and I have to say

02:35they've been incredibly supportive for us in terms of allowing us to move on.

02:40I'd also like to thank Jeremy so Jeremy Quinn who was the local MP up until a

02:47few months ago but has also been incredibly supportive and again at the

02:52other end of emails maybe not so much on the phone but at the other end of emails

02:55and things and has helped us push through lots of the things that we've

02:59done. There are people who are not here today such as Councillor Russell etc who

03:05unfortunately aren't able to make it but they have been equally as instrumental

03:09to us as those people. I'd also like to thank really very kindly for what you're

03:18about to see when we go outside. Sophie from West Sussex, Graham and Boonme from

03:24Atkins Realis and Will from Velocity Sports who have been working incredibly

03:30hard really closely with us over the past few years I will say but really over

03:37the past year and a half or so to get the project to where it is today and

03:42it's been it's been really good to meet with you and have your support pushing

03:46everything through the ups and the downs but here we are at an up which is

03:50fantastic so thank you so much. I'd also there's a lot of thanks here I'm afraid

03:55I'd also like to thank our PE department because you might think that they've

04:00got this wonderful facility out there and they should be really grateful but

04:05actually it's been a lot of heartache because they lost their facility for a

04:10long amount of time. For about a year we didn't have a field that they could

04:17use because you can imagine all of the heavy lifting equipment etc to put this

04:21thing in and so they were they were having to make do with our sports hall

04:24our gym and a bit of our fields up round the top of the school with it and losing

04:30the vast majority of what they would call their classroom and they've been

04:34incredibly supportive so I'd like to thank Matt and the whole team for that

04:37and I'd absolutely be remiss without saying a huge thank you to Paula and to

04:43Caroline and to Paula's team and to Caroline and her team for all of the

04:48work that they have done behind the scenes. Caroline likes to say I'm the one

04:52that comes up with the ideas but Caroline is the one that drives it

04:55through so I might say I want this nice Astro and Lee and Graham and lots of

05:00other people give us the money and allow us to do it but it's Caroline who is at

05:04the other end of the phone and is the one that sorts out all the issues and

05:07Paula is the one that works with all the teams so I'm incredibly grateful to all

05:11of those people. I'm sure I've missed people out in that but you are all

05:16incredibly important to us and lastly I'd like to thank all of those of you

05:21that are here today to support our school in terms of you might have hired

05:26our facility and you are here today to witness our grand opening as the

05:31founding hirers of our new Astro pitch. You might be here as local head

05:37teachers supporting us because your primary children come up to us and you

05:41work very closely with our school. You might be here as the principal of the

05:45local college who sees some of our kids come to you. You might be the local MP

05:50who is I'm sure going to look after us in the future but whoever you are you

05:55are incredibly important to us and I am so delighted and humbled that you're

05:59here with us today to spend our day with us. I'm going to leave it there in a

06:04few minutes we're going to go out we've got some really snazzy scissors for

06:07Gordon. We are going to go out and open the Astro officially unfortunately

06:20because of water neutrality laws and believe it or not FIFA we haven't had

06:25the final sign off from FIFA yet or the water neutrality so we were fully

06:30expecting to be opening and being able to use our Astro from today but

06:34unfortunately that is not the case. I know that Sophie and everybody

06:38behind the scenes is trying very hard to get it through as soon as they possibly

06:42can but believe it or not FIFA don't walk to our drumbeat. Unfortunately they

06:47make their own rules and who am I to argue with them. So unfortunately the

06:53Astro won't be opening you won't be seeing any games on it today but we will

06:56show you we will take you out there for you to have a quick look around the

07:00facility that we have. So before we do that though I would just like to ask

07:04Gordon to say a couple of words for a minute or two about his experience. To be

07:10honest it's been a privilege to be here today to see the school I think the

07:13school is a fantastic facility for all the young kids. I've been surprised how

07:18much space that they've got, the kids have got, the facilities they've got

07:25it's really good and I was speaking to Ted and Toby earlier on you know they love it

07:28and I think speaking earlier the results have been really good. For me as a

07:34sports person I've been privileged throughout my whole life to be playing

07:38team sport and the value that's attached to playing team sport I've learned so

07:43much throughout my life being a sports person and hopefully this facility will

07:48help future generation to come through and maybe one day Captain Brighton or go

07:53on to bigger and better things. So as I say I just want to thank you guys for

07:57being here, thanks for supporting the school and that's all I've got to say.

08:02Thank you very much.

08:03Brilliant, thank you.

08:09I declare this facility open.

New all weather pitch in Horsham opened by former international and BHA FC player

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