Graham Moran has been appointed Community Director for a 'Forest in the city' project at The City Ground. He outlined to us his role and his aims for his new position.

'Forest in the City' is a name I hope you will all come to be familiar with in the coming months as this new department of the football club will be very visible across the city of Nottingham, delivering a wide range of football related activities in working with all sections of the local community.

This new addition to the club's workforce will operate under a new charitable trust with three main aims.
Firstly, we will use the positive power of professional football to engage local people in, exiting, innovative, fun based inclusive physical activities; secondly to develop positive working partnerships with, public, private, voluntary and community organisations across the City of Nottingham and thirdly to deliver the highest standards of football-related services for the benefit of local people.

My previous 14 years in professional football have been spent at the head of one of the most respected football in the community schemes in the country, while at the same time involved in a part-time coaching role across the river helping to develop young players such as Jermaine Pennant, Wes Morgan, Kelvin Wilson, Julian Bennett and Will Hoskins. It is great to see local lads Wes, Kelvin, Julian and now Will in the current Forest line-up.

When I was approached by Mark Arthur to set up a new city-focused community operation at The City Ground it was an opportunity too good to turn down and it is my intention to ultimately place the Reds at the forefront of helping the city to address issues around physical activity, education, healthy lifestyles, social inclusion, training and employment. Professional football undoubtedly has the power to first engage and then deliver positive outcomes across all ages and communities.
There is no doubt that Forest has the potential to be one of the major community clubs in the country and our Chief Executive Mark Arthur has made it clear that his vision is to see the Reds respected within professional football and Government for its contribution to the local community. My job is to deliver that vision.

'Forest in the City' will work under the club's new charitable umbrella alongside the existing and well-established Football in the Community scheme under the direction of Gordon Coleman, who I have known since our paths crossed on the football pitch during school days. We met up again when Gordon interviewed me for my previous role across the river when he worked as a regional director for the Professional Footballers' Association back in 1993.

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity in my previous role to develop a number of programmes that attracted recognition locally, regionally and nationally, including the Investors in People accreditation, the Football Association's award for supporting education, nominations for Football League Community club of the year and more recently short-listing for the 2007 Football League Community initiative of the year.
I am hoping that I will be able to bring some 'silverware' to The City Ground in terms of the community-based work that I will be leading over the next few years and at the same time take football-related activities to new levels.