New StreetGames Football Pools Fives ambassador Gareth Southgate may have been in attendance, but football was not the only sport on offer during the programme's recent West Midlands regional event.
In keeping the programme’s intention to provide multi-sport opportunities, a 3v3 basketball competition, in association with IM Basketball, ran alongside with the Fives tournament.
England Basketball’s Ross Alexander reviews the event:
Former England international and new programme ambassador Gareth Southgate joined 36 male and female 5-a-side football teams for the StreetGames Football Pools Fives West Midlands tournament on Saturday (16th March).
Southgate, an ITV Sport analyst, was announced as an official ambassador for the StreetGames Football Pools Fives and will support the programme in its inaugural year. He visited the event to meet the teams and also joined in with coaching sessions that took place on the day.
Former StreetGames participant Callam Jones won his eighth cap for England under 17s yesterday as the Young Lions beat their Welsh counterparts 1-0. The squad is in Tallinn for a series of fixtures to determine qualification for the European under-17 championships. Having beaten Estonia in the previous fixture, England know that a win over Northern Ireland on Friday will see them top the table ahead of the Elite Round draw in early December.
The second Us Girls Rocks Festival took place over the weekend (Saturday 20th Oct) at Nechells Community Sports Centre in Birmingham. The event, which featured a wide-range of free sporting activities, was aimed at encouraging young women aged 14 to 25 to get active and have fun.
For five young StreetGames Future Flames, their experience of carrying the Olympic Torch in Birmingham on 30th June was even more memorable then they had imagined, as they found themselves with an unexpected brush with celebrity.
Tom Watson MP visited StreetGames at the George Salter Academy, which falls in his constituency, on Friday to present its participants with tickets to the Olympic football matches being played at the City of Coventry Stadium this summer.
The campaigning MP, and prolific tweeter, was keen to support StreetGames Give and Go, which sees over 1,200 young people from our network of projects having the chance to be inspired by the best sport of 2012.
More than 400 young people from StreetGames projects across the West Midlands took part in a futsal tournament last Saturday (4th February) organised by StreetGames and @Futsal.
Let’s Get Fizzical is a StreetGames project underway in Birmingham. It is working with schools, community organisations and sports clubs to provide free physical activities for 8-14 year olds.
Enjoy your summer StreetGames Festival? Want to organise your own neighbourhood festival drawing on the spirit within your local community in 2012? Want to feel the thrill of helping to bring young people and the local community together? Run a youth programme in a disadvantaged area?
If so, please contact StreetGames’ Special Projects Manager adam [dot] smith [at] streetgames [dot] org (Adam Smith) for more information.
Sandwell Leisure Trust has partnered with StreetGames to fund a new BMX project in Tipton.
Team Extreme, a specialist extreme sports coaching company, will run five days of free BMX coaching, to children aged 12 and over, between 23rd August and 1st September.
The project will culminate with a community games festival which will combine both sporting and cultural activities. The aim is to give people their own Olympic moment.
