The crazy golf course attracted much interest

A FINAL round of crazy golf will be played today (Friday) as a five-week fundraising initiative for a community centre comes to a close.

A course was installed in the gardens of Christ Church Highbury as part of a bid to raise £1.1million for the centre, which is set to open in January next year.

But organisers have found it’s not the winning but the taking part that counts.

Vicar Andy Chirch said: “We haven’t wanted the cost to stop people being able to play, it’s been really lovely to see that.”

He managed to squeeze in a round of crazy golf before the fundraiser finishes. “I didn’t do too bad. I got 19. It’s acceptable, not top of the leaderboard but I did get on it, which was important to me!”

He said he wanted to provide a space for families who would ordinarily have travelled abroad, but hadn’t been able to this year because of the pandemic.

Islington Council referred 12 families to play crazy golf for free last Saturday thanks to donations from parishioners who wanted everyone to be able to give it a try.

Churchwarden Verity Baldry, 43, said: “It’s allowed us to reach out even further into more deprived populations in the borough, who we perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily reach with the other things that we do.”

She added: “What success looks like for me on the building is that it generates enough money so that it can stay open and do the charitable stuff that it wants to do.”

The church plans to use its community centre for church projects, charity and commercial schemes.