A FOOTBALL club in the Isle of Axholme which has netted more than 200 pieces of surplus football strips over the past 10 seasons is donating the unused kits to children in Africa.

Crowle Colts junior football club has been regularly kitted out with new strips from local, generous sponsors.

As fantastic as this has been, this has meant that the old shirts, shorts and socks could easily have been left stockpiling on the substitute's bench.

But the Crowle Colts have thrown their support behind a campaign to recycle unused football kits, which will benefit children and adults in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Initiating the club's involvement was under 16s manager Tyrone Smith.

He said: "Rather than have the kits unused and wasted, I knew the KitAid organisation was there and it came to the rescue.

"Each new age group that comes up has a new manager who gets sponsors printed on the kits and because these kits are now old they get piled up in storage.

"If it's helping other kids get into sport then it's got to be a good thing."

Chris Rands, club secretary, said: "Crowle Colts have a long held philosophy that all children should have the opportunity to play football if they want to, and that the sport is there to be enjoyed by all.

"It is therefore fitting that less fortunate children should benefit by using unused Crowle football kits."

The kit is being donated to charity KitAid, which has Graham Taylor OBE as its patron, and last year sent 750 boxes of kit (27,500 shirts/ kits) to 35 different countries.

For the full story, buy today's Scunthorpe Telegraph.