Car leasing firm backs new initiative to reduce grassroots football injuries
Select Car Leasing, which has a dealership in Burton, is backing a new initiative designed to prevent serious knee injuries in grassroots sport.
Power Up To Play is an initiative launched by SKIPP - a charity founded by medical professionals in response to what it says is a huge rise in knee trauma among youngsters.
Mr Nev Davies, a SKIPP Trustee and Consultant Paediatric Orthopaedic and Knee Specialist, says a dedicated short warm up for grassroots athletes - completed twice weekly - could see a 50 per cent reduction in ACL tears.
Select Car Leasing, through its partnership with Reading F.C and the Grassroots FA organisation, is joining forces with SKIPP and Power Up To Play to offer the training to dozens of junior football clubs in the Thames Valley region and beyond.
Mr Davies, who knows the pain of an ACL all too well having sustained such an injury himself playing rugby for St. Mary's Hospital in London, says SKIPP acts as a 'task force ' against a 'tsunami ' of knee injuries.
He explains: “The main issue here is a knowledge gap and lack of education about the risk of significant knee injuries in young people. And this is the biggest challenge for us - raising awareness.
“And the worry for me as a consultant over the last fifteen years is that it 's not just 25 year olds who are rupturing their ACLs, it 's regularly youngsters aged 13, 12, 11 and even 10 years old.
The ACL is a ligament inside the knee which joins the thigh bone to the shin bone. It is most at risk of being torn when playing sports which involve sudden changes of direction - such as football, netball or rugby.
The PEP (performance enhancement injury prevention) ACL injury prevention programme recommended by SKIPP takes about 12 minutes to complete and features running, stretching, strengthening, plyometrics (speed and force), and sports-specific exercises.
Select Car Leasing has provided kits for grassroots teams, meals for underprivileged children, and has also given away more than a thousand free tickets to watch Reading F.C at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.
In recognition of those achievements, Select was recently shortlisted for the 'Grassroots Sports Sponsorship ' prize at The UK Sponsorship Awards 2023.
Mark Tongue, Director at Select Car Leasing and himself a grassroots football coach, is delighted to help spread the word re SKIPP 's aims.
He said: “Here at Select we 're incredibly proud of our support of grassroots sport. In fact, many of the people who work at Select are themselves grassroots sports coaches and managers who truly understand the enormous benefits that come with playing organised sport from a young age.
“That 's why we 're fully backing SKIPP 's Power Up To Play and the work of its medical professionals. And by highlighting the risk of knee injury through our network of Select-backed teams, we hope to be able to make a real difference when it comes to injury prevention. “
SKIPP was founded by a group of Consultants and Physios in Oxford in 2019.