YOUNG footballers are after the shirt off your back...but it’s all in aid of a good cause.

The good sports at Giffnock Soccer Centre have given their support to a partnership with the ECRAD Scotland (Empowerment, Counselling Relief and Development) charity that will see football strips being sent to kids in Africa.

ECRAD Scotland works with its counterparts in Malawi on a programme of improvements to ease the suffering caused by HIV and AIDS.

As part of the charity’s efforts, a football festival will be hosted by Giffnock Soccer Centre at the Norwood Playing Fields this weekend, with people asked to bring along sportswear and water bottles that can be shipped to Africa.

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Derek Clark, head coach at Giffnock Soccer Centre, said: “We are lucky as a club to have fantastic facilities and kit for the kids to enjoy their football and, when we heard about the amazing work of ECRAD, we felt we could help out.

“Old kits often get flung into a cupboard and forgotten about but they really can make the difference to lives thousands of miles away.

“We feel that, as a community club, we have a role to play.

“My son alone has about 20 football strips that don’t fit him anymore, so I came up with an idea of setting up a stall at the festival to raise some money and ask for donations of football strips or water bottles.”

Debbie McDougall, of ECRAD, added: “It’s great to work with Giffnock Soccer Centre in this way. Their festival is attended by hundreds of families and it’s terrific to see football used as a force for good.”

If you have old strips, training tops, shorts, tracksuits, rainwear, boots, water bottles or other kit that may be useful to others in less fortunate circumstances, take them along to the ECRAD stall at Norwood Playing Fields on Saturday or Sunday.

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