Tranmere Rovers may be prevented from playing football at the moment because of Covid-19 but this hasn’t stopped them making a difference to their community.

Tranmere Rovers in the Community is a registered charity and work hand-in-hand with the football club on community engagement, health, education and sports participation.

The community team’s work has expanded from coaching in schools to a wide range of innovative projects including improving people’s employability prospects and mental health and wellbeing.

The charity is based at Tranmere Rovers Recreation Centre at Prenton Park, where they run a series of groups for the community.

The club’s managing director Dawn Tolcher said: “Tranmere Rovers in the Community and the football club are like one organisation. Tranmere Rovers is a trusted brand.  We have a fantastic fan base and we’re very much at the heart of the community.

“We run things like a weekly dementia group and when coronavirus struck we tried to run our services for as long as we could,” said Dawn. “People said to us ‘please don’t stop what you’re doing, it’s the only thing we have to look forward to’.

“Eventually we had to stop our face-to-face contact but we knew there was a need for our service. One lady said her husband had dementia and doesn’t understand why he can’t go out. We now ring people in the dementia group to stay in touch. We’re also running dance sessions and poetry competitions online.”

The charity, which is 35 years old, was awarded £8,000 by the Steve Morgan Foundation to support their work in the community.

“It made such a difference,” said Dawn. “It’s enabled us to prepare food hampers for vulnerable people in the community. The hampers feed two people for seven days and so far we’ve distributed 331.

“Some of the phone calls we receive are heart-breaking but thanks to the Steve Morgan Foundation we’re able to continue doing what we’re doing.”

Steve Morgan, founder of the Steve Morgan Foundation, said: “Tranmere Rovers are very much a community club and they’ve continued to support the local community when they’ve needed help.”