Edinburgh man set to represent Scotland and Britain at footgolf appeals to local businesses for sponsorship

An Edinburgh-born footgolf player is appealing for local businesses to sponsor him as he gets ready to represent Scotland and Britain in the fast-growing support.

Declan Reid, a 47-year-old business analyst who grew-up in Dreghorn but now lives in East Calder, will represent Scotland again, at the Four Nations FootGolf competition being held in the south of England in May.

The sport follows golf rules, but competitors use their feet instead of golf clubs, with the aim of the game to get a size 5 football into the 21-inch wide holes. The yardage of each of the 18 holes varies depending on the terrain and obstacles, with anything up to 200 metres making a decent par 5.

Declan has qualified for the Great Britain footgolf team for the first time, to play against team USA in a Ryder Cup style event in August. He also hopes to represent Scotland at the European Championships being held in Turkey this December.

However, playing in these tournaments costs players hundreds if not thousands of pounds for travel and accommodation, so Declan is now appealing to local businesses to support him.

He said: "As you will appreciate, to play on the Scottish FootGolf Tour comes at a cost with entry fees, travel and accommodation. I am seeking sponsorship from local businesses who may be interested in supporting me. "Your company name and logo would be visible across my social media outlets, as well as in potential local media coverage and printed onto on my footgolf kit.

"To play all my events it costs about £500/ £600 for national tour events. For the Four Nations in England it costs about £600, and the Euros would be about a grand. I'm married, have kids and a decent job, but I would welcome sponsorship.

"The sport is getting bigger. Footgolf has been growing for about 15 years but started to get bigger in Scotland in 2016/17. They had a UK tour back then and I qualified to represent my country just by playing the tour events."

Last year Declan, who plays for the Kingdom of Fife team, won 6 out of the 14 events he entered, including The Scottish Open, The Scottish Masters and the senior Scottish Open. He currently has 12 caps for Scotland, but will make his Great Britain debut against the USA in August. He said: "I found this sport in 2016 and started playing competitively in 2017 when I first played for Scotland. It was still quite new at that time but now we get about 100 people at each event in Scotland.

"There are footgolf courses at Bridgend outside Linlithgow, Cluny Clays, Cumbernauld, and Broadlees near Strahaven has a custom made 18-hole footgolf course. Normally the course is set-up for an event and then taken down. But their one is always there.

"It can be quite tactical. And it's great fun. It's exactly the same format as golf in terms of rules and the eitquette. I played football to a not bad level, playing amatuers, I also played rugby. I liked golf but I was never big on it. But I love playing this game.

"People think this is all about hitting the ball as hard as you can but it's more about reading the game. With a lot of it down to your approach shot.

"I'm in the seniors because I'm over 45. I came second overall last year in Scotland in the seniors. It's like golf in that we have majors, but also smaller events below that.

"The team has 12 men, six seniors, three women and one junior. We all take on our equivalent, either individually or as a pairing. We are eight or ninth in the world and there are 15 teams that qualify for the Euros, so we are hopeful we will be there."

Any local business interested in supporting Declan, can email: [email protected].