A finance company has donated new football strip to the Kingsbridge and South Hams Disabled Football team.

Tim Jones, director of Kingsbridge-based Start Point Finance, presented the strip to the team and the team manager Jeff Buckley.

Jeff said he was “delighted” with Tim’s “generous gesture to support the team”.

He said that the team had played in the same strips for many years, so this donation had arrived in time to ensure the team make a fresh appearance in the 2019 league games which start in February.

Start Point Finance funds a number of sporting activities in the town and this latest funding was due to comments made by Tim’s son, Sam, who as a sixth former at Kingsbridge Community College, supported the team each week during their weekly sessions in the leisure centre.

The team began with an idea from the trustees of the South Hams Support Services, which later became Kaleidoscope.

One of the SHSS trustees mentioned the idea to her husband, Les Burns, who was an ex-professional footballer – and so began the football team.

That was 11 years ago.

Since then, a small group of keen adults have continued to play, attracting support from students, support staff and trustees from Activities 115.

The latter is a new charity venture that took over from Kaleidoscope in providing appropriate activities for adults with learning differences in Kingsbridge and the surrounding area.

In addition to weekly training sessions, the football team compete Devon-wide against similar teams in the Devon Disability Counts League, which is supported and organised by staff from the Football Association based in Newton Abbot.

This is a very popular series of fixtures that is open to all abilities.

Jeff said that the weekly sessions and the monthly league matches had “significantly improved the self-esteem, confidence, health and physical fitness of the team”, whose ages range from the early 20s to the late 50s.

Without local support, he said the team would struggle to fund their activities and fixtures which require paid membership of the Football Association.

The team welcomes new players and volunteers and anyone interested should contact the Activities 115 manager Paulina Kubas on 01548 856501.