Congratulations to Len Nicol who has been nominated for the Outstanding Commitment of the Year award at the Aberdeen's Sports Awards 2016.

Len has been involved with football in Aberdeen for over 30 years, making a massive impact on so many people throughout this time.

Len has been a mainstay of grassroots football within the Community of Dyce, with both Dyce Boys Club and his involvement with Dyce Juniors. With Dyce Boys Club, Len has taken on several roles throughout his time, ranging from coach to club treasurer.

Len has coached for Dyce Boys Club since the 80s, where he along with a few others ran the Boys Club. The Club has grown remarkably since then and Len has played a massive part in all of this. Len has had a great impact on so many young people’s lives through football, ensuring he and the club can do everything in their power to ensure the young people involved with them have a positive footballing experience.

The Boys Club currently has around 200 children playing weekly football for Dyce, as well as a girl’s section which was formed under Len’s guidance around a year ago which gives girls the opportunity to play organised football in their local community.

The creation of a girl’s section at Dyce was a long term vision of Len’s as he strived to make sure the club was more inclusive of its local community and it gave a clear pathway for all within Dyce to play football.

Len had a massive influence in the creation of the girl’s section of Dyce, which led on to Dyce winning the Community award of the Scottish FA Quality Mark Scheme. This was another massive award for Dyce and would not have been possible without Len’s commitment and drive towards the club reaching the next level in Quality Mark, becoming only the second grassroots club from the City to do so.

Len also heads up a summer coaching initiative for the grassroots club which provides weekly football sessions for children between the ages of 4-7 during the summer months. Len has run this in the Dyce Community for over 20 years and sees it as his way of giving back to the community. This year over 70 children attended per week to the football sessions, which Len coached at along with other Dyce officials.

Around 3 years ago Len went through a period of ill health, instead of slowing down or stopping his involvement, Len instead used Football to aid his recovery and now declares himself fitter than ever. Len started to attend walking football sessions run by AFCCT to get himself active after his ill health and now attends twice a week as an active member of the walking football group. Len has taken walking football back to his local community by introducing a Dyce walking football team that have played at several walking football tournaments, including a tournament that Len organised himself to raise awareness of the sport and raise money for charity.

Len also used his involvement with Dyce BC to recover, coaching the youngest age group at the club. Len takes weekly sessions with the boys and girls aged 5-6 and also takes them during their 4v4 fun football festivals.

Len is an extremely deserving person to win this award, as he does a power of work for no recognition. Without Len’s commitment and involvement, football in Dyce would be nowhere near where it is currently and hundreds of young people would not have had the opportunity to play weekly organised football in a fun, safe environment. Len has had a massive impact on hundreds of young peoples lives, including players which have had professional careers such as Russell Anderson.

Best of luck Len from everyone at AFCCT!