Region united by football tournament

More than 120 people from Lifeways’ Supported Living division have been united by their love of football after playing in a special tournament in North Yorkshire.

Hosted at Northallerton Football Club, teams from across Lifeways’ North East region played in more than 30 matches in an event designed to promote physical and mental wellbeing for our team members and the people we support.

Tracy-Ann Dixon, Regional Director for Supported Living in the North East, said: “We organised the regional football tournament last year to bring the entire region together and around 100 people took part, so we decided to do it again this year. It’s been so popular that we’ve already committed to another one next year.

“Northallerton Football Club have been very supportive in helping us run the tournament. Not only did they give us a discount on using their pitch, but they also came out to support our players and opened the café so everyone could have drinks and a treat if they wanted.”

Teams were made up of a mix of staff and people Lifeways supports, and included players of all ability levels with some staff helping wheelchair users to play. Matches lasted around 10 minutes with three points awarded to the winners. After each team had played against each other, the two highest scoring teams went head-to-head in the final, where the winners took home the trophy.

To add to the experience, team members sourced kits from local football teams or made their own for players to wear on the day.

Jessica, a person supported by Lifeways, said: “It was such an amazing day. The best part of it was making friends with other people supported by Lifeways, because if you didn’t plan the football event, I maybe wouldn’t have met them.”

Sam, also supported by Lifeways, said: “Even though I didn’t play football due to being a wheelchair user, I was still able to get involved from the sidelines and I felt included in the whole day.”

Tracy-Ann said that bringing everyone together for an event like this comes from a passion to provide the best possible care for the people Lifeways supports.

“It took a lot of organising in terms of transport, getting the kits sorted and making sure everyone was being looked after, but the dedication of our team members made these things easy to overcome.

“One of the players on the winning team was so happy he’d won that we couldn’t get the trophy back off him to get it engraved! Everyone had a fabulous day, and these are the things you do for the people you support and we want to remind them that no matter what challenges they face, we can support them to be involved and have fun.”

The football tournament was one of three joint events that have been organised by the North East region, with an athletics event and a “Lifeways’ Got Talent” event scheduled for later in the year.