Two weeks ago, I was standing, pitch side, at Mellands Playing Fields, Manchester, reflecting on the joys of Sunday League football. I was watching the team I manage, West Gorton FC play one of our local rivals. The rain had not let up in the couple of hours I had been stood there and there was a biting wind. And we lost! Sheer bliss and so much more bracing than Sunday mornings of yesteryear, when a lie-in would be followed by a leisurely breakfast and a long, slow read of the Sunday papers.
I started the team four years ago, after seeing a group of lads kicking a ball around the streets where I live. I said some of them looked useful and asked why they did not form a team? They said they had no one to organise them and asked if I would do it? Initially, I said no, I had no experience of managing a club and did not have the time. But they persisted and eventually wore me down.
We joined the Tameside League and had a bumpy start, finishing third from bottom in our first season. In the next, we finished fourth from top and last season were promoted as Champions of division Five.
From the start, funding has been a problem. Most of my lads, aged 17-22, are unemployed(Though not from want of trying, the jobs are simply not there.) and their families are of limited means. The City Council has helped us out and, half way through last season, another saviour appeared, Warren Goodall, the Business Development Manager of City Response, the company which maintains properties on estates such as ours. Warren had heard about our club and liked the way football was helping keep the lads out of trouble and forging links with the local community. The funding supplied by City Response means we can pay for floodlit winter training, our travel costs for away games and other associated expenses.
I have a day job, as a journalist for the Guardian newspaper. I write mainly about the criminal justice system and see first hand the problems, particularly in youth crime. When kids go wrong, society picks up a hefty bill. It costs a minimum of 100k a year to keep a young person in custody. (That escalates to a quarter million pounds a year in certain establishments). Does the public get value for their money? Hardly, when four out five young people re-offend after leaving custody. (And those are only the ones caught committing crimes) Running our football club costs a fraction of those sums; or put another way, what the likes of Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez earn in one hour, would keep West Gorton FC going for a year.
West Gorton is like many inner city areas in the current climate, a depressed zone. As witnessed in the recent spate of riots, unemployment and boredom can be a toxic mix. With the support of City Response, our club is developing into more than a team; we are currently exploring the possibility of sending two of our players on an FA course, to attain their Level Three coaching badges, with the eventual aim of them running junior teams in the area.
We are treading in some famous footsteps: most of our lads live around the Bennett St area of west Gorton, the place where, in 1880, another club was formed, St Marks FC. The club was set up by the daughter of the local rector, with the aim of keeping young men out of trouble. Ring any bells? In 1887, St Marks became Ardwick FC and seven years on, made their final name change, to Manchester City FC.
Watch this space!
