Youth United Day Community Cohesion Tournament

Four Teams contested this Saturday’s community cohesion 7-a-side tournament for 16 to 19 year olds at Goshen Sports Centre. Those teams were:- The Outcasts, Banardo’s Making it Work, Monsall and The Mosses Centre in Bury. The Outcasts are a team of young FC United supporters and their friends. Banardo’s Making it work are a team of young care leavers who have been training with Karl Marginson and other FC United community coaches every week this season, while individual players from the project have taken part in the community cohesion tournaments this season, this was the first time they had competed together as a team. Monsall were represented by a group of young people from the area who, while training regularly together, have not had the opportunity to play competitive fixtures so the tournament represented an opportunity for them to do this. The Mosses Centre is a community centre in Bury which this group of young people were representing. The teams played each other in a round-robin format, with members of the FC United youth team taking on refereeing duties.

The Tournament

The first game of the tournament was between Monsall and Making it Work, with an impressively well drilled Monsall side playing neat passing football to run out comfortable 6-0 winners over Making it Work. Meanwhile the Mosses Centre and the Outcasts contested a far closer affair, despite Mosses Centre scoring an early goal and having much of the possession they were held at bay by resolute defending by the Outcasts and were unable to add to their solitary goal throughout the game, so the final score was Mosses Centre 1 Outcasts 0.



In the Second round of games, Monsall took on the Outcasts and once again Monsall demonstrated there all round ability with some sparkling passing moves and clinical finishing to run out 6-0 winners for the second game in succession. In the other game the Mosses centre contested a close game with Making It Work, with the Mosses Centre on top for much of the game they scored two well worked goals but Making it Work had chances of their own to score but unfortunately were not able to take them leaving the final score as Mosses Centre 2 Making it Work 0.



So for the final round of games Making it Work played the Outcasts in a third place play-off and Monsall took on the Moses centre to decide who would be overall victors in the tournament. In the third place play-off it was making it work who started the stronger racing into a two-goal lead and while the Outcasts came roaring back putting lots of pressure on the Making it Work goal but some fine goalkeeping meant they could only score one goal, meaning Making it work took 3rd place with a 2-1 victory. Meanwhile Monsall and the Mosses Centre played out a see-saw encounter to decide who took the title, with Monsall twice taking the lead only to be pegged back by the Mosses team – however Monsall excellent passing football delivered them a third and decisive goal in a 3-2 victory, meaning that Monsall were overall winners of the tournament. Monsall then received the winner’s trophy at half-time of Youth United Day on the Gigg Lane pitch.


Monsall collect their trophy from Board member Adam Brown

Robin Pye, Community and education manager for FC United said, “We are very pleased with how the tournament has gone. All games were refereed by members of our youth team and all matches were played in an excellent spirit. For each of the teams who contested the tournament, their participation and performance represents a development for their team and this is what these tournaments are all about.???