Harehills football club fundraising for permanent home for boys and girls teams

Sporting Leeds FC, based in Harehills, are a community-led club that runs girls, boys and mixed-gender teams.

Currently, the club has around 50 to 60 attendees every week and uses the ground at Bankside Primary School in Shepherds Lane.

Originally, Waaqas Mahmood, a behavioural support worker at the school, founded and coached the girls team within the school's own Premier League-inspired football programme.

He saw a huge uptake in girls participating in the football team, particularly from within the South Asian community, and one talented player even went on to secure a spot in the Leeds United Girls Academy.

Waqqas, 30, from Beeston, said: "When I first started coaching the girls, a phrase I heard a lot was "I can't."

"Luckily I went to school and university with some great female players and I asked some of them to come to school to show the girls what they could do.

"Now the girls absolutely love it.

"A few years ago, it was seen as a boy's sport and it was unheard of that the boys would pick a girl to be in their team but now it's 50/50.

"The girls have grown in confidence and know that they belong."

However, Waqqas noticed that when pupils left the school to go to upper school they would stop playing football.

After seeing a few pupils be expelled from secondary school and begin hanging around on the streets, he decided to found Sporting Leeds FC as a community club.

The club now has an under-nines mixed team, a boy's under-thirteens team and an aged nine to 15 girls team.

More than 50 per cent of the club's attendees are girls.

Waqqas said: "As a behavioural support worker, I wanted to combine the sport aspect with a community aspect,

"I wanted to create a positive environment for children to be in.

"We are lucky at the moment that we can use the school grounds and the minibus, but our long-term aim is to find our own space with a big grass area and space for an office.

"This means we could have more accessible open hours which would be great as not only could the kids play football, but they could come to the club and play table tennis or pool.

"We also want to buy our own minibus so we can travel to and from away games.

"We want to invest and make it the very best it can be for everyone in Harehills."

Waqqas is now asking for the public's support to help raise money to secure a home for the club and a minibus so they can accommodate travel for the children.

If you would like to donate towards the club's fundraiser please visit the GoFundMe page.

You can follow the club's official YouTube channel here.