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Community work this weekend

FC United are involved in two events this weekend as a continuation of our social inclusion and community cohesion work.

Following on from the four mosques tournament in October and the work we have been doing with locally based asylum seekers and the Boaz Trust the club is organising a 7-a-side tournament in Albert Park in Salford and a representative game against Maccabi Sports.

The Albert Park tournament is called the ’Better Together Tournament’ and is being organised together with Salford Council’s Community Development Team and funded by the Co-operative Group a lot of hard work from a number of FC United volunteers has made the event possible.

A number of Maccabi players have played in FC United’s reserve and youth teams over the last few years, the event this Sunday will feature an FC United representative team playing against a Maccabi XI and will commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. Maccabi have arranged for representatives of other faiths to be in attendance. The match kicks off at 11am and FC’s team will include representatives from our first team and youth team squads plus representatives of Manchester’s refugee community fleeing from conflict in their own country. Holocaust Memorial Day is held each year to commemorate lives lost in genocides around the world, this year the theme is "Choose to Stand up to Hatred"?? and each of us are asked to examine our own attitudes.

The purpose of the Albert Park tournament is to use football to improve community relations in the area. Teams representing many different nationalities and ethnic groups currently use the same football facilities at Albert Park but rarely mix. This tournament is seen as an opportunity for the different groups to get to know each other. The aim is that by introducing the different teams to each other it will lead to more ’internationals’ being played and thereby improving community cohesion.

Twelve local adult teams will be taking part in the tournament. They include:

• The FC United Supporters’ team
• A team made up of Salford care leavers
• Omid United - a team run by FC United fans who are refugees from Afghanistan.
• Sportlight - a community sports organisation from North Manchester set up by African immigrants
• Teams run by refugees from Cameroon and Kurdistan.
• A team made up of immigrant workers from Poland

The tournament is also being used to launch a series of drop-in day-time football training sessions run by FC United manager Karl Marginson and funded by Salford Council. The idea of the sessions is to allow men who are free during the day a chance to access good quality football training and also get involved in playing football even if they are not part of a team.

The sessions will start on Tuesday 27th January and will run from 12 noon until 3pm at Albert Park on Great Cheetham Street.


First Posted ~ 16:47 Fri 23 Jan 2009
News ID ~ 2033
Last Updated ~ 01:52 Tue 16 Feb 2021