Thursday 12-10-2017 - 15:15

Whilst visiting the Crewe campus, we spoke to Mark Barnett (Co-Chairman and 2nd year Coaching Sport and Development) and Niall McCann (Club Fundraiser, 1^st Team Manager, also 2nd year Coaching Sport and Development) to catch up with them about their upcoming Blind Date event.

 

Tell us a little bit about the club.

Mark: “We train on a Monday night at Cumberland, so it’s a massive 11-a-side pitch. Both the first and second team train, from six to half seven, and then we have a bit of performance analysis afterwards discussing what happened the week before. We also train on the Tuesday night from quarter to eight until ten, but we split it. The first team go eight until nine, and second team go nine until ten, so each team get their own match practice before BUCS Wednesday. We play on Wednesday and it’s really good. We keep with traditions, which is shirt and tie for home games, and then for away games you wear your MMU stuff. Away games are always good too.”

 

Tell us about your Blind Date event coming up soon.

Mark: “So the event is coming up on the 24 October. We won Best Fundraiser for it last year at the Cheshire Awards, and we’ll win it again this year because of how good it is. Everyone loves it, and everyone is looking for love at the end of the day!”

Niall: “We’re hosting it in the Student Zone with a 19:00 kick off and £3 entry. It’s a laugh really; you’re going to see your mates squaring up on stage and have the opportunity to have a bit of banter.”

 

What does the club get up to outside of training?

Mark: “What we did last year was at the last away game, both teams were playing Liverpool – so we booked hotel rooms and went out in Liverpool. That’s a big plan for teams this year – we’re planning so that every away game we’ll probably be staying out in that town no matter where it is. So if we play Liverpool again, we go out in Liverpool, if we play Edge Hill, we’ll go out in Ormskirk.”

Niall: “For home games, when we are here for socials, we’re trying to reach out to other clubs and societies. It’s a smaller campus and it is shutting, so we’re trying to be inclusive of everyone.  It’s the same as what we’re trying to do with Blind Date – get everybody involved and get everyone together.”

Mark: “The best thing you can do is go and support other teams and other societies to help them out. At the end of the day, if you don’t help them, then they won’t help you.”

 

If anyone on campus wanted to get involved in Men’s Football and hasn’t before, what can they do?

Niall: “Get in contact with either myself, Mark, Jake Pogson (Co-Chair) or Blake, the 2^nd Team Manager. We have a system where if you want to get involved, you have to train and once you’ve familiarised yourself with the boys and the set-up, you can come along to socials. You can come to socials if you don’t want to play football as well – there are members of the club who don’t play. Cameron does performance analysis. It’s good for us to look back at games, and with him doing a performance analysis unit, he records them. That helps us, and it helps him too. If you want to get involved in football, we’ll find a spot for you. If you’ve got an interest, and we can use you, we are more than happy to.”

Mark: “And we do need someone to clean kit as well!”

 

You can find out more about Cheshire Men's Football here or check our Opportunities page for more clubs and societies.