History of Charlwood Village Football Club
09 Sep 2009

Charlwood Village Residents Football Club was formed in 1996 following a suggestion by the Chairman of the Parish Council during a debate on possible action to be taken by the council under Agenda 21. Agenda 21 came about at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June '92 when over 170 world governments signed a declaration aimed at ensuring a sustainable future for the world and throughout the 21st century. The directive filtered down through The United Nations, the European Community, the UK government, County/District and Parish Councils, Residents Associations and to individual members of the community.

At local level Charlwood Parish Council and the Charlwood Society were among the fist organisations in Mole Valley to take up the challenge and discuss possible avenues of action. One of the aims of Agenda 21 was to make local people proud of their community and to make them feel part of a team, the creation of the Village sign and the Parish maps were among the achievements arising from these early discussions.

Another initiative adopted by the Parish Council was the creation of Charlwood Village Residents Football Club. It was felt that such an organisation would allow youngsters to represent their village, at a level they understood and enjoyed, thus fostering pride in their community.

Over the 12 years since the clubs formation many young, local people have been involved in the decision making at the club's meetings and have been given positions of responsibility. They have also been encouraged to keep themselves physically fit and a strong set of club rules ensured they behaved themselves both on and off the field of play. After the formation of the club a set of historical football photographs, depicting village teams from 1901 to the present day, was displayed in the pavilion. The modern day players were able to pick out and identify their fathers, grandfathers and even great grandfathers who had played for the village. This gave the youngsters a sense of history and continuity of village life.

We feel the club has achieved some of the objectives of Agenda 21 and given local youngsters a chance to represent their community and following that a pride in their community. The club would like to thank the Parish Council for promoting the club. Without their sponsorship and encouragement in the early years it would have been difficult to get started. We would also like to thank members of the Charlwood community who have donated so generously over the years and enabled us to continue running the club and pursuing the ideas of Agenda 21. We feel that in order to achieve these objectives it is essential that the youngsters perform on the village recreational ground where they can be supported by their friends and relations to give them a true sense of community under the ideals of Agenda 21...