Young Volunteer of the Year: Cameron August

The England Football Grassroots Awards

We are delighted to announce that Cameron August of Lancing FC has won our Young Volunteer of the Year Award as part of England Football’s Grassroots Football Awards.

This Award looks to recognise to a volunteer under the age of 25, who is dedicated to helping make grassroots football enjoyable for everyone.

Cameron, 15, has been a volunteer coach for the past three years at Lancing FC.

He very quickly became a passionate fan and started to help several other volunteers out on an ad-hoc basis undertaking several different roles - with appropriate safeguarding in place, of course.

This included helping the coaching team with laying out cones etc. and volunteering to run the line for younger age groups. More recently Cam has undertaken much of the club’s social media, including designing matchday posters and tweeting updates at both home and away games.

Cameron August Lancing 1 — Cameron collecting his award

Cameron August Lancing 2 — Cameron does all the social media updates at Lancing

Cameron August Lancing 3 — Cameron has grown in confidence on the mic

Cameron August Lancing 5 — Cameron with Lancing FC manager Jamie Hollis

Cameron August Lancing 4 — Cameron writing out the teams at Lancing

Cameron has made a real impact on the club in lots of ways. Firstly, the pre-match entertainment is now slicker and more regulated, certain songs come on during the build up to kick-off, to produce an excellent atmosphere at Culver Road.

He makes announcements over the tannoy throughout the games, to keep supporters up-to-date with other scores around the league at half-time, crowd numbers, additional minutes at the end of the half and so on, he also assists the other announcer with the often tricky job of trying to work out which one of the opposition players has just been substituted, when no board was held up!

He has grown in both confidence and ability, his social media posts are improving all the time as he finds the right balance between engaging with the audience, while remaining professional and detached.

People like Cameron are the future of grassroots football, to see him grow from the 13-year-old who first started volunteering to one of the main voices of a Step 4 club, has been rewarding for the club committee and of course, Cameron’s own Family!