Plans for £1m Sheffield Yard Ball 'street football' centre submitted

An artist's impression of the proposed Yard Ball development on Little London Road in Sheffield

Plans for a £1m "street football" activity centre in Sheffield, taking the game back to its "purest form", have been submitted to the council.

Tekkers Leisure said it hoped to turn a site on Little London Road into the country's first Yard Ball centre.

If given the go-ahead, users would take a trip down memory lane to play games like kerby or the crossbar challenge.

Tekkers owner Scott Riley said he hoped to recreate "that nostalgic time period where, in my mind, football was great".

Planning documents for the 50,000 sq ft (4,645 sq m) Yard Ball centre on a site previously owned by timber specialists Arnold Laver have been submitted to Sheffield City Council.

Scott Riley, who came up with the idea for Yard Ball, says he wants to take football back to its "purest form"

Mr Riley, 43, said he wanted to strip back the game to how it used to be, without many of the modern developments such as goal music and half-and-half scarves.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield, Mr Riley said: "Watching my kids play grassroots, and the amount of pressure they are under these days even as they get older, there is no place of release."

He said he wanted to create an environment where people can "come to Yard Ball and just enjoy it with your parents, play with your friends".

"That's really the drive behind it - to give them a memory, as opposed to an instruction," he added.

Mr Riley said if the centre got the council's go-ahead, he hoped it would particularly attract members of under-represented communities.

"It's open to anybody - anybody who just wants to take the ball, experience it, have fun with it.

"It's creating that nostalgic time period where, in my mind football, was great."

If given the go-ahead in Sheffield, it could later be rolled out elsewhere, Mr Riley says

The Yard Ball concept could later be rolled out across the country, Mr Riley said.

He added that it was important to him to open the first branch in Sheffield to honour the fact the city was home to the world's first football club, Sheffield FC, which was established in 1857.

The centre would partner with grassroots and professional football clubs and create up to 24 full-time jobs, he said.

If the plans were approved by Sheffield City Council, work on the Yard Ball centre was expected to start in the autumn and it could open early next year, Mr Riley said.