'Pitch Perfect', a new initiative aiming to kickstart environmental awareness in grassroots football in South Yorkshire has been announced - and there are some fantastic prizes to boot

Penistone Church FC v Worksop Town FC in the semi-final of the Sheffield and Hallamshire FA Senior Cup.

Calum Oakenfold, marketing and communications officer for the Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA, said: "The idea behind Pitch Perfect is to get teams to be aware of their surroundings, whether it’s the pitch itself or all the surrounding environment and encourage them to pick up litter, whether that's being aware of the litter they may be taking to games or any litter that may have blown into the areas and it is essentially to encourage them to act on it."

The Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA is in charge of 25 leagues, with over 3,000 clubs and over 50,000 registered players.

Every one of these will be in with a chance to win some of the fantastic prizes, with the team behind Pitch Perfect having already gained the support of professional football sides including Sheffield United and Wednesday, as well as Sheffield-based kit manufacturer, Kitlocker.

The Pitch Perfect project will kick-off on February 7.

Each month a club will be announced as the winner.

Calum explains: "Once they register, they might organise a litter pick once a month, or they might choose to do it every game.

"They will register for free online and they will be sent a welcome pack and some details around what they have to do - from there, when they go out and organise a litter pick, we will encourage them to get photos and videos and send over as much information as they can about it, as well as taking a picture of the end amount they collect.

"They can enter as many times as they want in a month and they can do as much and as little as they want.

Clubs will be able to send images of the amount of litter they collect in the hope of winning a prize

“We will be judging the entrants and decide who we think deserves to be the winner that month and they will come and collect their prizes from our various partners which will hopefully help their team going forward.”

The FA is still looking for more partners to team up with to offer amazing prizes and get behind the push to keep Sheffield’s pitches free of rubbish.

Calum added: "We wanted to use football to get a bigger message across - about litter and the environment and how much harm we can cause.

"The by-product of Pitch Perfect is that the children in our area, I hope, will be aware of litter and the environment around us."

Keep your eyes peeled over the coming months as The Star will be posting how to get involved, and each winner will appear in the newspaper every month.

Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA’s Pitch Perfect project will launch on February 7 with registration opening the same day and, to keep up to date, follow @SHCFA here.