Football Foundation Monthly: Find your nearest place to play football with PitchFinder

After one of the most amazing Premier League seasons ever – Leicester City, who would have thought it? – it won’t be long before Roy Hodgson takes his England team to France for EURO 2016.

Football, thankfully, never stops. All of that is at the very top end of the game, though, of course – the Football Foundation’s work at the grassroots level to build better facilities continues, too, which means that you and your mates have more chances to play the beautiful game.

School’s out for the summer, right? Well, not quite, but nearly. Even so, you are probably already planning when and where to meet for a kick-around and that is likely to be at one of the Foundation’s facilities but even if it isn’t, we can still help.

Drum roll please – introducing PitchFinder, a super tool which maps all the football facilities near to your house, all you have to do is type in your postcode.

PitchFinder doesn’t just show you where your nearest pitch is, it tells you if it has floodlights, so you can play long into the night, if it is a grass or artificial surface – handy so you know whether to bring studs or moulds – and even what size the pitch is so you can decide whether to play fives or a full 11-a-side game!

You will also be able to find booking details, so you or someone from your club could hire the facility for a full season, for example.

Someone super smart also made all the information on PitchFinder editable by the public, so you can help update it even it’s missing info! Like, if your local pitch has floodlights and an extra 5-a-side pitch PitchFinder didn’t know about, you can update it so that other footballers will know when they search for somewhere to play. Such a good idea.

The Football Foundation has been using money from the Premier League, The FA and the government since 2000 to build new football pitches and changing rooms across the country. With a massive £1.3 billion spent in the last 16 years, the Foundation has built these facilities in areas where they are most needed; where they will get more people playing football and other sports.

We can only do this amazing work if we know where all the football facilities are – and also where they aren’t! – so that’s why PitchFinder was created. Not only does it allow grassroots footballers up and down the country to find their nearest football pitches, it helps us to plan where we should build the next one.

The Football Foundation have worked really hard to make sure that when they build a football pitch it gives the most people possible the chance to play sport.

PitchFinder will help us carry on that great work and also give footballers an essential tool to find somewhere to play.

So go on, if you’re looking for somewhere to play, log onto PitchFinder now!