Government minister visits Banbury United
13/08/2025
Its hoped the visit will help resolve some of the club’s challenges
A government minister has been in Banbury this morning to learn about the challenges faced by the town’s fan-owned football club.
Stephanie Peacock – the Minister for Sport, Media, Civil Society and Youth – visited Banbury United following at the invitation of our MP, Sean Woodcock, who accompanied her on a tour of the Spencer Stadium.
Ms Peacock learned about the part the club plays in the wider community, with volunteers rising to the challenge of keeping the club alive.
She also heard about the issues which are holding the club back, including problems with flooding and the uncertainty over Banbury United’s long-term future at Station Approach.
Ms Peacock told us: “I know local MP Sean is going to reach out to the relevant department for the flooding issues, but in the last few months we’ve announced money for grassroots sport.
“We worked closely with Sport England and the Football Foundation. I know there’s some challenges here to access that funding and we would like to do what we can to support. Obviously some of it’s out of our control, but we’re really committed to getting people active and to putting money into grassroots sport.”
Before concluding her visit Ms Peacock acknowledged the hard work of all those involved at Banbury United. She said: “It was really interesting hearing about all the hard work that goes on locally – all the activities for young people and kids – and all the hard work of volunteers to keep the club, which has been going since 1931, doing well.
“I know from my own area – I’m the MP up in Barnsley – the big difference that grassroots clubs make in terms of getting young people active, get them involved in sport and also giving them a lifelong love of football, so it’s incredibly important.”
Ryan Duggelby is a volunteer director with Banbury United and one of the team who showed Ms Peacock around the ground. He hopes today’s visit will help make progress in addressing some of the club’s problems.
Mr Duggelby said: “We’ve had our flooding challenges – the context there in joining a few people up to give us some better answers where things may have gone a bit silent is very helpful. Its hugely material to us in terms of the financing and the cost when we lose games to flooding.
“In addition understanding the challenges we’ve got in Banbury as a whole in terms of the facilities. We don’t have 3G (or higher) standard training facilities here. We can barely find places for our first team to train, let alone the 350 kids that play under our name, the development team under eighteens, the brilliant women’s team, the girls, the neurodiversity. Facilities in general are a big problem and I think raising that issue to government and to Parliament is urgent for Banbury.”
Its hoped the visit will have demonstrated the vital part Banbury United plays in local life.
“We’re fan owned with some very dedicated volunteers,” said Mr Duggelby, “but we’re up against some really competitive financing ability with other teams in the league. We can’t access grant funding at present because of our ground situation which we’ve been working really hard to resolve, or to get at least into a better situation.
“We’re all talking about football regulation at the higher levels of the leagues and throughout the Football League, but really we need some support for the clubs that do an awful lot in the community like we do.
“Today just highlighting exactly what we actually do in the local community has been really helpful, showing it’s not just 22 blokes on the pitch, it’s an awful lot more than that.”
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
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