Major funding boost for Mancunians

Mancunians are celebrating a major funding boost after receiving nearly £50,000 to kick-off new sporting activity across Manchester.

Mancunians, who are Manchester’s dual-code rugby club, have been granted £47,500 to grow their successful Active Mancunians programme throughout the city.

The programme will see both codes of rugby, handball, dodgeball, wheelchair rugby, walking football and new sports including walking netball and walking rugby introduced at various areas around Manchester.

The Active Mancunians programme, which is unique to Manchester, will be delivered in collaboration with the growing number of partners that Mancunians has across the city and will create a gateway for people getting involved in sport for the first time, for those returning to activity and to signpost people of all ages into the existing sports teams that the club has.

The programme will also see Mancunians extend their ever-growing primary school programme to new schools in new areas of Manchester which have been requesting to join.

The club is seeing a steady stream of children join the club’s out of school activity sessions from primary schools and this is seen as a priority area.

Club Director Stefan Hopewell said: “Two years ago we published our strategy for Manchester, which was very well received by prospective partners across the city.

“Twelve months ago we announced that our initial work in 2015 had been successful and that we would push on with the roll-out of our offer across Manchester and now in 2017 we are proving that to achieve success you need to create a robust plan and stick to it, despite the challenges that may present themselves.

“A major part of the Active Mancunians programme is our Magic 5s, which sees people of all ages play small-sided games and we are excited to see this project growing week-by-week.

“We regularly stage Magic 5s events for primary aged children and we are looking forward to seeing this concept extended to older people in the next few months.

“We thank the growing number of partners that we have across this wonderful city for their support in preparing for this award and we are very much looking forward to working closely with them over the next few years.

“This award means that Mancunians can continue towards its objective of having 1,000 participants by the year 2020 and that we can continue to be sustainable, not in debt and not in hock to a benefactor or sponsor.”