Boost for grass roots sport across the region

Grass roots sport across the Midlands has been given more than £120,000 of lottery cash.

A boxing school in West Bromwich, swimming club in Halesowen and a cricket club in Stafford are among 17 organisations sharing the windfall, following an investment by Sport England.

The move is part of a scheme to get one million people playing more sport in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

Halesowen Swimming Club has received £10,000 for new electronic scoring and timing systems to be installed, and Stafford Cricket Club scooped £10,000 for new nets.

Imran Mohammed, general secretary of the West Bromwich Amateur Boxing Club which has also received £7,600, said: "This is a massive boost for the club.

"It will be spent training more coaches up and buying new equipment like punch bags, gloves and hand pads which will allow us to bring more youngsters through the door and keep them off the streets and out of any trouble they may get into."

He added he hoped numbers at the club, based at Alpine House Gymnasium, in Roebuck Lane, could now be boosted from 40 teenagers to up to 60.

Funding worth £15,500 will also be given to the Birmingham-based charity Sport 4 Life UK, which will be used to set up a special summer soccer school and under-12 coaching sessions.

Another £1,750 will go to Lapworth Cricket Club, in Solihull, for a new junior team. Pickwick Athletic Club, in Wake Green Road, Birmingham, has scooped £8,354 for a new bowling machine for its cricket team.