Batman Brian

Blog by Brian Carson, 29 October 2023

All opinions are my own.

Background

In October 2012 Glasgow Life and Parkinson’s UK Scotland started a walking football pilot with a handful of participants. Now the programme is supported by the Celtic FC Foundation and sessions take place every Thursday at the Toryglen National Football Centre.

Player numbers continue to rise and these sessions have been developed to support the physical, mental and social health of People with Parkinson’s, and they are fun to take part in.

Last weekend

On Saturday 21 October 2023 the Inaugural People Ford Parkinson’s Walking Football Festival took place at Toryglen.

Eight teams took part and the event was a roaring success enjoyed by everyone involved on the day.

I consider myself a veteran of Parkinson’s sporting events having attended many in various countries. They never fail to inspire me as the Parkinson’s community gather to have fun, meet new and old friends, share experiences, and support each other in dealing with our condition.

This event was no exception to that experience and may even have raised the bar on what these events deliver.

Rather than use a book worth of words to describe the event I will let some of the photographs of the day tell the story.

Note: Please read in the spirit in which it was written. 😂

Credit to Craig Foy / SNS Group for some of the photographs below.

The Draw

The week before the event the draw took place at the Hampden Park Museum Hall of Fame. A great venue to hold this event.

Brian Gilda, Tom Boyd, Matt Ramsay and I taking the trophy for a walk around Hampden after the draw.

The Draw Outcome

The Opening Ceremony

The Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band, the current World Champion pipe band.

Brian Gilda, owner and MD of Peoples Ford, the event sponsor with some familiar faces.

All the teams together

The Walking Football Scotland Team

Game on.

After the opening ceremony it was straight into the matches with the group stages being played on two pitches.

All games were played strictly to WF Scotland rules, including no running (or fast walking), maximum 3 touches, and no contact. As you can imagine the referees were kept busy enforcing these rules.

Being serious for a minute both referes did a fantastic job and their fairness and consistency only added to the experience.

Cammy from WF Scotland and Rob from the Pennine Parkies giving 100%

Gordon has his “game face” on.

Eric AKA Lubo Moravcik struts his stuff

David and Drew have just been advised the pies have all gone!

Walking Football Scotland President Kenny McLean with Alan Rough

Duncan telling Coach Russell we should be attacking more and should play a 0-0-5 formation and not 2-2-1. Russell looks impressed!

Matt and Drew just been told more pies have arrived

Our goalkeeper James having a rest, with his minder/coach Peter. Well deserved he made some fantastic saves.

We had 10 outfield players in our squad and tried to give everyone equal time on the pitch

On completion of the group phase the top two teams in each group went throughto the semi finals.

As we finished in third place we moved straight to the final of the Challenge Plate, playing against the Movers and Shakers. We won 2-1

James Jopling, Parkinson’s UK Scotland Director and part time roving reporter during our final.

The obligatory “winners” pose

Then it was on to the main event, the final between Northern Lights and the Pennine Parkies. This was a great match to watch and not only entertained us but gave us some focus on the level of skill and teamwork required to be succesful in this sport. I am sure this will be discussed with our coaches in the weeks ahead

Northern Lights were just too strong and ended up convincing winners, well deserved.

The Northern Lights travelling support, not sure if the term “Wags” is appropriate these days! I mistakenly thought there was 50 of them due to the volume of their cheering, they were superb all day.

The winners of the inaugural Peoples Ford Parkinson’s Walking Football Festival – Northern Lights.

The event was superbly oganised and executed by those involved including:

Peoples Ford

Glasgow Life Football

Celtic FC Foundation

Parkinson’s UK Scotland

In ending I include a great quote fromWF player Joe Gregory “Today we had 8 teams of winners”.

We are looking forward to next year already.

End