Walking Football - The People’s Cup

The People’s Cup

Rooftop has a brilliant Health and Wellbeing team who organise a huge range of events and activities, whatever age or level of fitness you have. Earlier this year we took part in the People’s Cup, a football tournament with a difference, as the participants are all over 50 and the match takes place with everyone walking.

The preparation started long before the day itself, with locker room talk, who was able to attend, what we would wear and how well we would do. The team spirit of this group of men is amazing. We all met up a few days before to try on our kits, set up a chat group so we could organize lifts, talk tactics and sort meet times out.

The tournament took place in late February and was held at Goals at Birmingham Star City. We set off from Bromsgrove and Evesham then met to talk final tactics, which boiled down to just one…to score goals and leave the other team standing.

13:45 saw the 4 teams briefed on rules and respect, then after a final chat we kicked off. Each match is 20 minutes long; we only had one sub, but this worked out well as all the guys got a fair amount of time on the pitch. The teams we came up against were more professional than the Rooftop Rascals as they play 3 times a week, enter tournaments and play games weekly. A few of the players had played for Villa Development and football had been a big part of their lives.

The first two games saw us lose and unable to score, these were against Peles Pearls and Walking football Birmingham. In the final game against Wolverhampton Wonderers Foundation we scored 6, but we still lost. This didn’t deter our guys and the Ref said if there had been a Trophy for the team that encompassed, team spirit and walking football as a whole he would give it to us.

Our team never dropped their heads, they just got on with the game and task in hand and represented themselves and Rooftop very well. I had a proud manager moment when the Ref made a point of coming over to tell me how impressed he was. The manager from Wolverhampton Wonderers foundation also came over, he wanted my number as a contact for future tournaments which delighted our guys when I told them.

Walking Football has brought them together as a team, has created lasting friendships and has allowed them to stay connected to a game that they can continue to play in their later years. A great day was had by all, we leave the losses behind and with enthusiasm we will focus on our next challenge whatever that may be #uptherascals