MAKING MEMORIES 50 YEARS ON Dartford FC’s Co-Chairman Steve Irving had the chance to make a splash in his primary school swimming pool, exactly 50 years after leaving the school in July 1971. As a young Brent Primary School pupil, Steve’s family spent four years fundraising for the Primary School swimming pool that Steve never had the opportunity to learn to swim in. Paying sixpence (2.5p in decimal currency) each week, the swimming pool fundraising took a number of years, and the swimming pool build was completed in 1973. Headteacher, Sarah Rye, provided Steve with the opportunity for an early morning swim in the heated pool, before some pupils attended for additional swimming lessons at the start of the school summer holiday. The Brent Primary School uses the pool each summer term to teach pupils in Years 1 to 6 to swim, in the hope that pupils are able to swim 25m by the time they move onto secondary school. National Sporting Heritage Day is held each year to celebrate sporting heritage and use the stories it holds to educate and inspire. The Dartford FC Community programme is providing the opportunity for our local community to discover, share and record sporting memories, stories and experiences from primary and/or secondary school. Steve’s dip in the pool and memories of Sports Day (see the image of Steve’s certificate) is just the start of Dartford FC’s Sporting Heritage Day 2021 project, and we need your support too. Think back to your days at primary or secondary school, and playing school sport. Do you have memories of school sport experiences such as representing your school in a competition or festival taking your first swimming lesson or finding that one sport you absolutely love? The memories can be positive or negative, but we are hoping to receive lots of positive ones!
32
