Every Friday evening, the three astroturf pitches at the Manchester Tennis & Football Centre in Ancoats fill up with dozens of young men and boys playing 7-a-side football.
This club is run by Active Communities Network and it has grown very popular since starting in 2010, with between 50 and 80 young people attending each session. It is free and open to everyone between 14 and 21 years old.
The people attending are from a wide range of ethnic groups, representative of Manchester as a whole, and many different languages are spoken. This is a chance for new friendships, and links between groups of young people that might normally isolate themselves from each other.
Besides being a lot of fun, the football works as a diversion activity. It pulls young men (and it is mostly men, though the sessions are not gendered) off the streets and gives them a chance to form new positive relationships with each other, to grow their self-confidence, and to improve their aspirations and increase their horizons.
The club that Active Communities Network runs is a ‘hook’ to catch and engage young people, to help them onto a pathway of opportunity and lead them toward education, training, and employment. The organisation aims to tackle poverty and to inspire change.
During the last two years, over 300 different people have attended and dozens of them have since started volunteering. Jamie Lees, who works as a manager of the project, is very proud of what is being achieved, “We are delighted with the success of this session and the overall project. To get such a range of young people from the local community taking part in sporting activity like this has really helped break down some of the preconceptions and barriers within the area and improve community connections”