FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester Badge FC United of Manchester Pitch In

Community Cohesion Tournaments Evaluation

During the 2009/10 season the FC United community team ran 7 community cohesion tournaments at Goshen Sports Centre in Bury before Saturday home fixtures. These tournaments aimed to give groups of young people, aged 16-19, with an interest in playing football, but who do not play in organised competitions, the opportunity to play competitive matches against each other. Furthermore, the tournaments aimed to bring young people from a wide variety of ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds together to play football. Over the course of the 7 tournaments a number of different youth groups, refugee projects and care-leaver groups have taken part, as well as the FC Outcasts – a team of young FC United supporters, and teams of young men from Bury who have been involved in FC United’s ‘Communities for Health’ project.

A recent evaluation we undertook of the project revealed a number of encouraging signs that the tournaments have been successful in meeting their goals. The evaluation revealed that 138 young people have been involved with the project and these young people have come from 52 different electoral wards in Greater Manchester. Further to this the evaluation demonstrated that the participants had come from a range of different ethnic backgrounds with 51.45% White British, 31.88% Black African/Caribbean, 10.14% Asian and 3.62% Mixed. Furthermore, a number of young people from the ‘Making it Work’ care-leavers project, which the FC United community team is heavily involved with, listed participation in the community cohesion tournaments as one of the highlights of their involvement with FC United.

FC United community and education manager Robin Pye said "There are many organisations across Greater Manchester who are using football to engage young people and our tournaments meet a real need by providing an opportunity for these groups to test themselves in a competitive environment against similar groups. The 16-19 age range allows groups of young people to take part who would ordinarily fall foul of age restriction rules. I would particularly like to thank the volunteers from amongst our fans who have made these tournaments possible and, of course, FC Outcasts who have organised themselves and been very flexible in playing all sorts of different teams over the last season."

The FC United community team hope to continue the community cohesion tournaments over the coming season with the aid of funding from The Co-operative and Manchester County FA. If you know of any group which you think may be interested in taking part in these tournaments or for anymore information please contact robinpye@fc-utd.co.uk



First Posted ~ 13:39 Wed 18 Aug 2010
News ID ~ 8912
Last Updated ~ 00:56 Wed 17 Feb 2021