Crewe United and FARE brought together ethnic minorities (Polish and Portuguese) that would not normally have any means of access of lines of communication with the local population. This event helped promote understanding, tolerance and closer links within the different communities and establish a communality which is currently not present or not recognised within the communities.
During our “Ball For All” weekends we had 7-a-side Mens & Ladies, Boys & Girls community soccer event. It was run over the 15th & 16th October and the 22nd and 23rd October and included skill competitions, toe-tap-penalty shot outs, networking opportunities and access to local service information e.g. health promotion & education, Fire Service (Photos attached). There were also full sided games with the main participants including Crewe United, Union Lusa (Portugese) and Maxx FC(Polish) as partners to support the event given their different cultural and ethnical backgrounds.
The kids involved were asked to design a Anti Racism banners which will be used in the coming year to break down the problems of racisim within football and society in general in Northern Ireland as well as having a game of football themselves!
Approximately 400 people attended over the two weekends. Families and friends from all the clubs involved participated as well as the wider communities within these minorities and we included other activities other than solely football to ensure there was an activity for everyone to get involved.
The weekends were a huge success and we would like to thank all participants and volunteers as well as FARE for their ongoing support.
