A JUNIOR football club which was hit by a fire last autumn is set to launch its first girls team after securing a £5,000 grant after winning a national award.

Bold Rangers JFC was awarded the funding by financial mutual, OneFamily, through its Foundation Community Awards.

The club, which trains more than 100 children up to the age of 13 at the Bold Miners Neighbourhood Centre on Fleet Lane, is run and supported by more than 20 parents who volunteer as coaches.

It plans to use the funding to work with schools and community centres, to encourage more young girls to join the team which will play competitively next season. The money will also be used to build new changing facilities for the girl’s team.

Bold Rangers was nominated for the award by chairman Mark Fairbrother and is one of 40 organisations presented with an award in the latest round.

The club recently raised more than £4,000 to replace equipment destroyed in the fire last November.

The Star reported last summer that the club was planning to bring in girls-only teams after receiving a Grow the Game grant from the Football Foundation.

Chairman Mark said: “Our club is going from strength-to-strength and this funding will allow us to create a dedicated girls’ team and build a new changing facility for them.

“There are 30 girls on our waiting list to join the team and we will be encouraging more girls across Merseyside to take up football to allow the team to play competitively.”

Karl Elliott, marketing director at OneFamily, added: “Bold Rangers is a fantastic organisation, and it’s great that the money awarded will support kids at a grass roots level and encourage local youngsters to get involved in a team sport."

See the club's project page for more here.