Newman students create platform for Futsal League

18/09/2018 by Sinead Staunton

Sport students at Newman University

In the last academic year third year Sport students at Newman University, Birmingham ran a successful Futsal event for U10 and U12s across Birmingham.

The event formed part of the students’ degree and was professionally executed with the students involved receiving high grades for their efforts. Following on from the event, Stefan Lawrence, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Health at Newman University has continued to develop the relationship between the University and the County FA. At a recent meeting the news was shared that due to the work completed by the students a regular, working Futsal League will now be operated by local football team, Bartley Reds FC at Newman University.

Newman University sport department

Stefan Lawrence commented “Sports degrees at Newman are unique in that they require students to engage in learning beyond the classroom, which not only benefits the students but the wider community, too. This event, which our students worked tirelessly to arrange, in partnership with Birmingham County FA, was not only successful as a stand-alone futsal tournament, it also empowered the local community to offer provision for futsal in Bartley Green and beyond. This is what I believe higher education should be about.”

The event clearly shows the impact student and staff partnerships at Newman University are having in the local community. Luke Bowles, Senior Football Development Officer at Birmingham County FA originally tasked the students with putting on the event and commented

“It was great to work with the students who were pro-active and ran their own sustainable Futsal tournament for U10 & U12 teams which fed the National FA Futsal Youth Cup via County Finals and Regional Finals.

“The students had a huge impact on the teams and businesses that they worked with. So much so, that Bartley Reds have created 16 Futsal teams from their grassroots football players, these players are playing in their own Internal HUB Club league which will then feed the County Finals.

“The students have opened up the opportunity for the club to run their league from the University which has allowed up to 128 players to play a sport that is growing at a fast rate in our County.”

Sport students event

The students involved have now graduated from Newman University and will attend the ceremony at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham next month. One student who was involved was James Hobson who took responsibility of booking the venue where the tournament took place as well as liaising with Bartley Reds FC. James commented:

“It was a massive learning experience, when it comes to events like this, it’s down to customer experience and satisfaction in order to get the best results possible to make it a success. Additionally, I learned that the value of teamwork is essential in a project, especially with no budget to work with, connections that individuals have can make the difference between a successful or unsuccessful event.

“It was an excellent event that brought a large community together. I am proud that something me and my group did for our University project not only was successful in terms of the grade, but successful in meeting one of the County FAs aims!”