Theo Richardson has been crowned as the 2023/2024 Community Player of the Year.
Richardson started the season as he meant to go on as he attended one of our Soccer School Camps last summer, which was a great day and all the kids really enjoyed.
He then continued to be an ever-present friendly face throughout the campaign with our Fans of the Future programme!
The Community Foundation's Team of the Week would receive a stadium tour, which included the changing rooms two hours ahead of kick off - where Richardson constantly went out of his way to engage with the children and take photos with them, making their day even more special.
After receiving his award Richardson said: "It was a really proud moment to have won the award and be recognised by everybody."
AFC Fylde's goalkeeper stated why he believes helping the Community is important: "When I was a kid I always looked up to players playing in first teams and I always used to try asking for gloves and stuff like that, so now that I'm in a position to have that influence, I try my best to make the fans happy.
"I feel like I try and give back as much as I can, especially with kids on matchdays because I was in that position once so I always try best to give something back to them."
Richardson did admit that there was an element of surprise when he heard his name announced: "No I wasn't expecting to win the award at all. I know I'd done a few visits and interacted with fans on matchdays a lot but I didn't really think about it like that, so when it was announced I was pleasantly surprised."
The award winner reflected on his personal highlight of the season with the Community: "My favourite [moment with the Community] was when me and Max Metcalfe in pre-season went down to see all the kids in the [Soccer School] camp when all the big inflatables were out.
"We were able to really interact with them and some of them gave me a run for my money trying to put it into the top corner, so that was really good, I really enjoyed that."
Everyone at the Community Foundation would like to thank not just Richardson, but all of the AFC Fylde players who helped out with the Community this year, we'll see you all next season!
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