Eton College receiving financial assistance from the school continues to increase. Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its Statutes and removing its Headmaster and some of the Scholars to start his new school. When Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. The group of feoffees appointed by the king to
Eton College Athletic Club was "deprived" because local people (who were not pupils at the College) did not have a world-class running track and facilities to train with. Steve Osborn, director of the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit, described the decision as "staggering" given the background of a substantial reduction in youth services by councils across the country, a matter over which, however, neither the College nor the UK Sports Council, had any control. The facility, which became the Thames Valley Athletics Centre, opened in April 1999. In October 2004, Sarah Forsyth claimed that she had been dismissed unfairly by Eton College and had