Figures released by sports website provider Pitchero suggest that Britain’s grassroots sport structure is heavily reliant on the hours donated by an army of volunteers.

Pitchero’s report shows that there are an estimated 150,000 community sports clubs in the UK - each of which benefits from the support of an average of 24 volunteers.

Pitchero surveyed a total of 2,341 volunteers on its database and found that the average amount of time they volunteered for was 6.7 hours.

With the UK’s minimum wage set at £6.31, the hours put in by the UK’s 3.6 million volunteers totals £7.9bn.

Mark Fletcher, CEO and founder of Pitchero, claims the statistics are a conservative estimate.

He said: “We based the calculation on the minimum wage for adults over 21 which is £6.31 per hour rather than an average wage.”

Research also showed that 95 per cent of the volunteers who completed the survey were adults aged 30 and over. Less than 2 per cent of those surveyed fell into the 16-21 age bracket.

Fletcher added: “This research should be a wake up call to the sporting community, highlighting that more needs to be done to encourage young people to donate time to their local sports club.”