Culcheth Walking Football Club is making proper use of the new artificial pitch at Culcheth High School, which is exactly what village facilities should be for, not just admired from a distance like a posh patio nobody is allowed to stand on.
The club now hires the full pitch on Tuesday evenings from 7pm to 8pm, giving them room to run three games at once for up to 42 players. That is a tidy bit of organisation, and frankly more efficient than most car park manoeuvres outside the Co-op on a Saturday.
The big news is that the club is looking to set up a women’s team, which is very welcome. Walking football has sometimes been treated as if it belongs only to blokes reminiscing about their best left foot from 1987, so seeing Culcheth push for wider participation is a genuinely positive step.
For anyone unfamiliar with it, walking football is usually played as six or seven-a-side, with its own rules and proper structure. No, it is not just normal football with everyone pretending their hamstrings are still under warranty. It is organised at local and county level and taken seriously by the people involved.
Culcheth’s club already competes in the Lancashire Football Association over-50s and over-60s leagues, a Cheshire FA over-60s league, plus national cup competitions run by the FA and the WFA. They also enter tournaments, including one in Portugal every year, which sounds suspiciously like the sort of fixture list everyone suddenly becomes available for.
Yannis Nicolaidis, the club’s secretary, said: "We always welcome anyone over 50 who loves football to come and give it a try. We are a club of all abilities and we are especially keen for more 50-59 year olds to bolster our teams. We are also looking to set up a women’s team, as other clubs have done."
There is no membership fee, with sessions priced at £5 pay-and-play. In the current climate, that is refreshingly sensible, though one does hope the new pitch booking stays affordable because community sport should not need a mortgage application and a meeting with a financial adviser.
The original report was by Mike Parsons, Group Sports Editor, and also carried a rather curious note about an exclusive subscriber partnership with sister title USA Today, saying it was written by American colleagues and did not necessarily reflect the view of The Herald. Quite why Culcheth walking football needs a transatlantic disclaimer is anyone’s guess, but here we are, village football apparently going global.
For further information, the club lists [email protected].