It's been a while.......

Since we last did an update, just under a year and, WOW, a lot has changed.

We've been crazy busy in that t so, we thought an update would be useful.

Let's start with our sessions.

We've added a new session to our Women's football.

Back in February, we started an over 18s session on a Monday night 8-9pm to encourage more women to play whether they were beginners or wanting to get back into playing with an emphasis on practice rather than match play (which we do). Following on from the model we have with our Wednesday night session for over 30s, we've had a great response to this session and are always looking for new players.

We also moved our Thursday morning Penketh over 60s Walking Football to a new venue, which is the same venue as the above-mentioned Women's session and at around the same time. This is an indoor 3G pitch which will allow us to play throughout the year without having to cancel any sessions due to bad weather. So far so good, but as it has been summer we've yet to sample the delights of a cold and frosty December morning and a bunch of moaning Gerry Hattricks. Can't wait though.

Back to our Women's sessions.

We also moved our Wednesday over 30s session to a new venue at Birchwood High School 3G. We are the first and only adult Women's team to use the pitch (that we are aware of). Since the move from Penketh High, we have gained quite a few new players.

Also our Lionesses team have successfully completed their first season in the She Inspires League run by Liverpool County FA and also played a couple of other tournaments. The team is a well-bonded team and have been praised for not only he way they approach the games but for their support of other teams who they are playing against.

Season 2 starts in September and we are hopeful to have a 2nd team involved. If anyone is interested in joining our sessions and a 2nd team then just reach out and we'll get you playing.

In April we were nominated for an award at the Warrington Guardian Community Awards, for the work we have done within the community. Whilst we didn't win, it was an honour to be on the shortlist among some extremely worthy and deserving people.(pic below is the Enjoy Football team who attended)

We've also started a new thing called Chair Football. Working with Warrington Borough Council Wellbeing, we are delivering a game to varying people across the community. Chair Football, bit of a weird one and I'll try to explain how it works. You play the game sitting down on a chair. Essentially we have 2 goals, either end of a marked out or sometimes not, pitch. You grab a chair and sit down anywhere on the pitch (we allocate teammates and colours so we have 2 teams). Once you're seated, you're locked in, can't stand up, take your bum off the seat or move your chair. We use a sponge or very soft ball and then it's away we go and you play as you would a normal game (no hands though). Most of all it's a good laugh and quite good as chair-based exercise. If you would like to find out more about this game come along to one of our sessions at the following community centres in the Warrington area: Westy Community Centre Mondays 1.30-2.30pm, Croft Wednesdays 11.30-12.30pm and Whitecross 1-2pm, Fridays Padgate 11am-12 and Greenwood 12.30-1.30pm.

Sadly we had to close down our St Helens Recovery session. We do hope that someday we can get this back up and running.

We were also invited to coach United in Belief FC of Warrington which is a team involved with Warrington Refugee and Asylum Seekers group. We've managed to play against teams of similar groups in Liverpool and St Helens as well as a couple of tournaments. They are a great bunch of lads who and whilst there is a challenge with the language barrier, from a coaching and playing perspective, they are all passionate for the game and this speaks for itself.

Our work with Stockton Heath Primary School continues and we had a couple of great results from our girls-only club. The school entered 2 school tournaments with the year 5/6 team 99% of whom attend the club, and we had a 1st and a 3rd. Not bad as most of the girls had not played before joining the club.

So that's pretty much it. If we've missed anything out we're sure we can pick it up somewhere along the way.

We are always open to looking at doing new things in different areas and bring football no matter what variety and format to the community. High on our agenda for the coming 12 months is to start a pan disability session for both children and adults.

If you're looking for something and we don't do it, let us know and we can see if it's achievable to start a session.

Massive thanks to everyone who has attended any of our sessions be them 3 years old to, well I think our current oldest is 78, but don't let that stop you.

Dave Smith