Diversity Awareness Football Event In Wirral

 Wirral Community Football Tournament

Wirral Bengal Sports Association organised Wirral Community Football Tournament, which was 7-aside, that took place at Birkenhead Park Football Club on Sunday 28^th June 2009.

The aim of the tournament was to create community cohesion and to encourage communities to participate in sports to stay fit and healthy and look at needs around Mental Health.

Football equipment was given out to each team participating so that they can continue to play sports regularly, with nine teams participating. These included players from the Bangladeshi, Polish, Chinese, African, Arabian, English, Irish and Indian communities which all reside in Wirral. Also Merseyside Police and Wirral Change entered a team each.

The day was attended well by both local stake holders and the community.

This was a fantastic and visible opportunity for the community to see local stake holders “getting involved in real community cohesion”.

The community had a real opportunity to verbally engage with our public sector colleagues including; Steve Russell (Wirral Council), Barbara Edwards, and Patricia Moroney (NHS Wirral) who all took the opportunity to mix well with the local community.

Simon Barrigan from Merseyside Police not only came with his family who had a great time, but was one of the players that took part in the football competition with the team from Merseyside Police.

As mentioned earlier this was fantastic for the community to see and we believe has helped to make links stronger between Wirral BRM communities and Wirral Stake holders.

Wirral Change were very supportive to the Wirral Bengal Sports Association and we would like to acknowledge all the hard work that the Operations Manager Sabra Ahmed did to help the day itself run so smoothly.

Acknowledgements need to also be mentioned for a local popular restaurant “The Bollywood Lounge”, who donated some great food for the day, and also “Little Indian”, who provided refreshments to the public.

The games were played in an excellent spirit and some good players were on show in front of up to about 300 people. The final was between Polish Community team, Polish-Team FC and Wirral Bengal FC, and was very competitive. Eventually, Polish-Team FC edged the game 1-0 and received the Wirral Community Football Tournament trophy for 2009.

There was music being played in the background all day, along with bouncy castles for families with children.

The organisers have had excellent feedback from people who were there. One individual concluded, “This tournament brought back memories of my youth, growing up in Birmingham, playing football with my friends and family!” Another commented, “Wirral has been very quiet until now. Events like this bring people together, no matter what their colour, culture or beliefs. We need more events like this in the future.”

The final comment was left to the organizers, Gous Miah, Noor Ali and Tipu Miah who all agreed, “Everyone worked very hard to make this tournament happen within four weeks! We have made history on the Wirral by holding an event specifically aimed at creating community cohesion, and trying to bring awareness to Racial males around Mental Health issues by bringing people together with sports. We will continue working to improve our communities by holding more events like this. We would like to thank everyone who supported us to make sure it went successfully.”