Accies Fitness a boost to local kids

May 10 2007 Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser

HAMILTON Accies have offered rehabilitation facilities to sports clubs throughout North and South Lanarkshire.

The New Douglas Park club feels that cost and lack of available facilities means that youngsters aren’t given sufficient opportunities to recover from injuries.

And they’ve realised the benefits from experiences with their own pro-youth set-up.

Accies Fitness, a gym housed within the First Division club’s stadium, will provide injury assessment, treatment and rehabilitation facilities, carried out by fully-qualified physiotherapists and sports therapists.

Project leader Darren Cross, general manager of Accies Fitness, is currently seeking funding for the project so that he will be able to offer the service at around £4 a time — less than a tenth of physiotherapy rates he’s priced elsewhere.

And he said the service will greatly benefit kids in later years.

He said: “Some clubs at the moment will struggle to get treatment for their kids because they simply don’t have that kind of money, but that’s not a concern here.

“The service we’re offering also takes away a lot of hassle, because clubs won’t have to worry about where they can send kids.

“They’ll also know that because Hamilton are a professional club, they’re going to get proper treatment.

“There’s nothing worse than kids at 12, 13 or 14 being out of football or sport for any length of time, because it can be enormously frustrating.

“A lot of times kids think they’re bullet-proof, they really don’t know what kind of damage an injury is going to do to them three or four years down the line.

“Everybody who comes in will be under the supervision of a fully-qualified physiotherapist, and that means they will get back to what they’re doing that wee bit faster.

“We’ve got two chartered physiotherapists and a sports therapist available, who will be in from 5pm until 9pm, and through a drop-in clinic on a Sunday we can offer initial treatment on injuries that have happened the previous day.”

Any interested clubs are invited to contact Darren on 01698 368667 to arrange a tour of facilities.