North Manchester Community Games

The first ever North Manchester Community Games was held at Boggart Hole Clough on Sunday 24th August.

A number of different sports clubs and sporting organisations organised a series of events to make up the day. Around 500 people in total attended the event enjoying the warm sunshine for which Blackley is so well known.

FC United’s community team took responsibility for putting on a range of drop in sports activities on the grass field to the side of the athletics track. People attending the event or just out for a stroll in their local park were able to have a go at a football skills session, join in some small-sided football matches or have a go at learning some rugby or volleyball skills, all running concurrently over a six hour period.

The FC United delivery team was a large and enthusiastic one and is probably better described as "FC United and Friends".

• Five coaches from Moston Juniors FC took responsibility for the skills sessions and did an excellent job.
  
• Coaches and volunteers from Skillz FC from Sale ran the small sided matches.
  
• Two volunteers from Northwards Housing turned up unexpectedly and got stuck in.
  
• Four young volunteers who had participated in our summer youth project clearly couldn’t get enough experience of community sports coaching so they turned up and helped out as well.
  
• Our four European Voluntary service volunteers (Cihat, Tommaso, Luis and Daniel) took care of the rugby and volleyball sessions.
  
• Two of our community coaches (Adam Valentine and Gavin Healey), both of whom incidentally are local lads and graduates of our summer youth project from 2012, were there also.

Danny Robinson, North Manchester Community Sports Activator, said, "Your coaches have been excellent."

Robin Pye, FC United’s Community Manager said, "We have managed to mobilise 18 volunteers today and two of the paid coaches here were previously volunteers with us. This has enabled us to put on a lot of community sports activity on a very small budget and deliver it with the kind of infectious enthusiasm that makes people walking past want to get involved. It was interesting to see how popular the rugby and the volleyball was and I think this is something we will take into future events like this. A number of people have asked about joining local sports clubs which means they are interested in participating in sport on a regular basis. We want to work with the council and the North Manchester Sports Forum to put on more events like this next summer and link it even more effectively with local sports clubs and local schools. This event has been a great platform for sports development in North Manchester."