FOOTBALL club chairman Magnus Painter is usually picking teams but for the last six weeks he’s been choosing menus after the club set up a hot meals service for isolated elderly people.

The Stratton Juniors boss, who has had to put his driving school and airport transfer businesses on hold during the pandemic, has been given a £2,000 grant from the Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response Fund to help keep the service going.

The fund has now raised £543,000 to help voluntary groups tackle the fallout from the pandemic in their communities.

Mr Painter said: “My mum Margaret passed away last October and I was thinking about her and what she might have needed during these times and that put the idea in my head.

“My in-laws are having to self-isolate as well so I was thinking about them too.”

He ran the idea past club secretary Paul Surridge and the pair then set about putting a plan to deliver meals on Tuesdays and Fridays into action.

“I asked on Facebook if having a hot lunch delivered was something people would like for their relatives and it started building up from there,” said Mr Painter.

“We started cooking from home for the first few weeks and it started to grow. We had people contacting us whose parents are on their own saying having a lunch two days a week would benefit them.

“The Royal British Legion have started referring people to us too. We’ve been delivering to Upper and Lower Stratton as well as further afield to West Swindon and Redhouse. We are up to 85 clients and that’s our limit now really.”

The meals are now prepared in the kitchen at the Grange Leisure Centre after Stratton St Margaret Parish Council offered its help.

Mr Painter said: “It’s me, my wife Louise and eldest son Harrison in the kitchen, he comes down with me at 9am and helps do all the preparation.

“We do simple but nutritious food like cottage pie, sausage and mash, fish and chips, fish pie, pasta bakes and hotpots.”

He has enlisted ten of the club’s coaches, many of whom are on furlough, to help with the deliveries. Magnus added: “All the volunteers are brilliant and if we are doing mash they all help peel the potatoes too.

“We’ve had lots of nice comments about the quality of the food, the friendliness of the drivers who chatted to them, and about what we’re doing. It’s all about making people feel that there’s someone looking out for them, not just with the food but with having someone to talk to and check in on them, and I think they really appreciate it.

Young players from the club have been drawing pictures and writing letters about life in lockdown to send out with the meals. Magnus spent the morning of this bank holiday in the kitchens preparing the usual Friday deliveries, which this time included a poem written by one of the players, while team members dropped off cream teas for Grange Drive neighbours

The club spends £400 a week on ingredients so this latest grant will make a big difference.

Mr Painter said: “The grant from Wiltshire Community Foundation has been brilliant and not only will it help us keep going for a couple of months and take the pressure off for a while, it will also help us to buy good quality, nutritious food.

“People have been very generous with donations. We’ve had food donated by Waitrose and containers from Morrisons and we’ve had about £2,000 donated through Just Giving.

“We’ve also had a lot of individual donations from people who received the dinners, they send us thank you cards with some money in it. One of the sons gave us £100. We’ve had lots of nice feedback and I think people really enjoy it.”

To donate to the Wiltshire Community Foundation fund, or to apply for a grant, go to wiltshirecf.org.uk