The floodlights of McDiarmid Park can just be seen through the haze of heat that settles on Seven Acres.
Children play on the grass pitches and a stream of girls emerge from the artificial pitch after an under-14 match.
This patch of Perthshire grass and plastic attracts hundreds of footballers, volunteers and supporters every week. It always has.
‘We used to go down there and play football, the usual jerseys for goalposts stuff,’ says Stuart Cosgrove, broadcaster and journalist. ‘I lived on Strathtay Road and the Seven Acres was where we went to play football in the sixties.’
The club, formed in 1960, holds a special place at the heart of a community. ‘We have had some decent footballers come from Letham,’ says Cosgrove. ‘Liam Gordon, now at Motherwell, is the most recent but Jim Blyth, the Scottish goalkeeper, was also a local boy. But the club means much more than producing elite players.’
Letham FC is the footballing arm of Letham Community Sports hub. ‘The area has been designated as one of multi-deprivation,’ says Cosgrove. ‘The club plays a big part in addressing that. This is what is so important about football and can tend to be forgotten. It matters to people but it can also help people. This is simply a good club.’
Letham players make their way to the pitch via a children's playpark
Shaun Simpson goes close to a hat-trick with an ambitious overhead kick
Players relax outside the club tuck shop ahead of their Scottish Junior Cup encounter
It bubbles with life three hours before kick-off in a second round Scottish Junior Cup tie between Letham of the East Region Midlands League and Dunipace of East of Scotland Premier Division. At the centre of this activity sits the tuck shop. Elaine and Willie Kidd are at the helm. Elaine, at 61, dedicates her Saturdays to heating pies, serving hotdogs and pouring cups of tea and coffee.
‘We have been doing it for about seven years,’ she says. ‘My son Jon, who runs this facility, brought us in and we have stayed on. It’s good for Willie. His health has not been the best in recent years and it is something he looks forward to.’
Willie, at 81, enjoys the banter that naturally surrounds a football club. ‘Hockey was really my game,’ he says. ‘I played for the Army.’
His wife points out that the connection with the club is strong. ‘He was ill and needed emergency transfusions and my phone was just going ping, ping, ping with people asking how he was,’ she says.
Willie and Elaine Kidd have been serving out teas, coffees and pies for seven joyous years
‘I was born and bred here though we now live in Fife. But I always enjoy being back in Letham on a Saturday. We are here in the morning for the girls or boys games and then we leave after the Juniors have played and the visitors have had their hospitality. It can be a long day but it is always a good one.’
The hum of a leaf-blower signals the precise whereabouts of Jon Kidd, club development officer. He has worked in hotel management and marketing but now faces the multiple challenges of being the person who keeps the community hub spinning.
‘Matchdays are obviously busy,’ he says as he returns to his office after clearing the pitch to huddle over a computer. ‘We have more than 20 teams here so it is all go on a Saturday. And then we go again on a Sunday.’
The major sponsor is the Gannochy Trust but Kidd (below) must attract and retain other funders. ‘This is not just a football club, though football is so important to us,’ he says. He points out that the club does after-school events and holiday camps. ‘This has been categorised as an area of multiple deprivation. We are not just based in the community, we work in the community. We want to improve things.’
Jon Kidd is involved in every aspect of Letham as the club's development officer
The club has been at Seven Acres since its formation in 1960. ‘It has moved through several iterations,’ says Kidd. ‘We were once an amateur team but in the past four years became a Junior club.’
The changes will continue. ‘We have plans,’ says Kidd. ‘We want to improve facilities. The artificial pitch is 10 years old so that needs replaced. The grass pitches are used for training but we would like to see them upgraded so they could be used for matches.
‘We run very close to capacity on the artificial pitch. It is packed every night of the week. We need a clubhouse and we have drawings for one. But all of this needs money.’
The club is working with Perth and Kinross Council to find a way forward but there are other initiatives too. ‘We are working with the local climate change charity,’ says Kidd. ‘There is a lovely wee walk at the back of the ground and we would love to upgrade this into a nature trail.’
He adds: ‘This could be an oasis of nature in a housing estate. Remember, we are not just a club that plays football in a park in Letham. We are Letham Community Sports Club. The sport is a vehicle.
Supporters get up close and personal as Letham manage to pull off something of a cup upset
‘We all love our football but we consider our impact in other ways. How do you support people? We have people who struggle through a host of issues. Our ambition is to use what we do here to help others.’
Now seven years in his post, after years of volunteering, he finds his experience in the hotel trade and in marketing has been useful.
‘Everything I have done in the past comes into play here. You had to organise events as a hotel manager, you had to attract funders in the marketing business. I need to do all of that here.’
He also leads more than 50 volunteers who enable hundreds of people — from children to adults — to play football. ‘I am very lucky. I have a job I love,’ he says. ‘It’s my passion and I still manage to keep a roof over my head.’
The girls’ team has left. The men’s side take to the pitch to prepare for a major cup tie. ‘I was a ref for 33 years,’ says Kenneth Laird. ‘I retired from that but I wanted to stay close to the game. I am now the goalkeeping coach here.’
Former referee Kenneth Laird, now a coach at Letham, kicks the ball back into play
He started his football life as a goalkeeper more than 50 years ago and has helped such as Lochee United as a coach. Letham holds a special place for him as it is on his doorstep. ‘I still work as a hospital domestic,’ he says. ‘But I am free on a Saturday so that is why I decided to volunteer.
‘I have always been close to football. As a boy I played and helped prepare pitches at my amateur team. Then I went into refereeing and would get up early on a Saturday in the frost and rain to go to do a match. I just did it all because I loved it. I can’t explain it.’
Derek Hamilton, secretary, has only just come on board at Letham. ‘I know the manager and he needed an extra pair of hands,’ he says. Originally from East Kilbride, he now lives in Perth and knows the ethos of the club. ‘A win is always nice,’ he says. ‘But here you are trying to help people. This is a tight-knit area and we want to appeal to people on our doorstep.’
Club secretary Derek Hamilton is new to Letham but has bought into the community bond
The manager emerges from a victorious dressing-room. Letham have deservedly prevailed to reach the third round of the Scottish. ‘This is what we want to be,’ Sean Whitworth Pert says of sporting success. But he embraces the greater purpose of Letham FC. ‘It is why I came here. I knew about the project here when I came five years ago as assistant manager. One of the big things that drew me is the lift the football club can give the community.’
At 36, he has a playing background at amateur and junior level in the area. ‘But I always wanted to be a manager,’ he says.
And that name?
Manager Sean Whitworth Pert played amateur football in the area before taking to the dugout
‘I was born Sean Whitworth,’ he says. ‘My granda was a Pert but he split up with my granny so I was a Whitworth. My dad passed away recently and he wanted to keep the Pert name going so I have taken it on.’
It is an acceptance of the past and a nod to the future. It thus somehow chimes with the broader aims of Letham.