Community Relations Week 2014: Football Tournament
As part of Community Relations Week 2014, Assembly Community Connect organised a football tournament involving local youth teams, teams from World United, representatives of the PSNI and our MLAs. The event was held on Wednesday, 20th June, at the PlayBall sports facility in the Stormont estate.
The World United teams were made up of males and females from different ethnicities and races from across the world, as well as local residents. The two youth teams consisted of players from Ballymac Youth Club and Doyle Youth Club, who demonstrated the cross-community spirit of the event by coming together as the “Dollymackers”. The MLA teams saw Assembly Members from across all Parties come together to form a male and, for the first time, female team.
The first matches saw the impressive World Unite men’s team taking on the MLAs men’s team, while the Dollymackers played the PSNI team. The final saw the PSNI play World United in a close match that ended in a 2-1 victory for the PSNI.
Meanwhile, the female MLAs faced the equally impressive World United female team in an energetic and entertaining match that saw the World United team triumph with a 3-2 victory.
Caitríona Ruane, in exuberant form after scoring a goal for the MLA team, said: “Iit was good to have people from all different parties in the Assembly, and even better, to have people from different parts of the world who have made their home here…It’s good that Community Relations week is celebrating the diversity of our relations right across this city and across the North.”
Chris Lyttle was equally positive about the event, stating: “This is the real face of cross-community Northern Ireland.”
Denise Santos, one of the World United players, said of the MLAs, “it is good for them to see that the projects that they are funding or helping are actually working.”
Reginald Vellem, Chairman of World United Football, agreed that the event was a good opportunity to showcase their work: “It is because of things like this that we see the benefit of the work that we are doing. We work mainly at the grassroots, with young people, and I believe that if we make a difference while they are still young, Northern Ireland in years to come will be a very different place.”
A big ‘Thank you!’ to everyone who participated and made the event such a great success – see you in 2015!
The Community Relations Council’s video of the event can be viewed below:
