Community Life

Back in 1928 a young man called Jack Carter asked for a room in a Quaker’s meeting house. He wanted to give local children a safe place to play on a regular basis. Little was he to know it would inspire a fully fledged 19 acre youth club some eighty years later.

Frenford club sits on the High road in Seven Kings next door to Ilford swimming baths. Currently, it provides up to twenty different sporting activities for hundreds of teenagers in the vicinity. At just a pound a session the club is cheap and popular often a buzzing in the evenings. 

Sports enthusiasts, coaches and P.E. teachers make up a large number of the fifty plus volunteers that run Frenford. Young cricketer Ravinder Bopara trained at Frenford since he was ten. He’s now playing for England in the World cup series.

All change

However, plans for a new multi million pool on Frenford's neighbouring site does not include Frenfords existence. The club would have to move. The Chairman of the Trustees  Nicholas Hurst says:

“Our badminton hall would be the deep end of the new 50 metre pool… I’m disappointed that we have to leave an area where we built up such strong ties and where there is a distinct a need for a youth provision.”

Currently, the club and the council is negotiating Frenford’s future. Plans to modernise and expand Frenford's sister site in Barkingside is one of the alternatives being considered.