Football at The Hive inclusive for all
A thriving community is building under the Barnet FC banner
When I set up this blog a few weeks ago I wanted it to be one where fans of Barnet Football Club offer their own pieces and opinions as well as my own, after all it’s for you to read and it’s about your football club.
Last week I approached Shaun Sherrick who runs the walking football element at The Hive to give me a piece to use and as expected he didn’t disappoint so sit back and learn a little more about how involved these men and women are with some success along the way:
‘Fun friendship Football in a safe healthy environment’, sums up over 50’s walking football at The Hive with the Barnet team. We are a community team at heart and our inclusive set up means everyone will get a chance to represent us.
September will see our teams play several fixtures and we are proud to announce 39 different players will represent us, we are probably the only team in London that offers such opportunities, it’s not all about winning, but of course players do not want to lose.
Eventually though the scores will be forgotten but friendships will remain, and memories will last a lifetime. We started out with just four players and now have around 130 on our books, even injured players come to our sessions to help referee and then join us back at the Hive bar afterwards, we have created a family that talks every day and meets twice a week. We are very lucky to have such amazing facilities at The Hive and with the support of BFC chairman Mr Kleanthous and The Hive Trust we were very proud to have been invited to parade our trophies with a lap of honour at the final home game last season.
We are growing our team and expanding our community work and contacts all the time, and as I write the MP for Finchley & Golders Green has just contacted us to ask if we would like a table at a local event in October promoting health and advice for the over 50’s, it’s brilliant the way our name has spread synonymous within the community.
The work we do I still find amazing that it has received such wonderful recognition, before lockdown we were invited to the black-tie event London Sports Awards at the Guildhall nominated for our impact in the community, culminating recently with our FA Award as Middlesex FA grassroots project of the year and Barnet Homes Group of the year.
We have supported many local groups in need of funding from Harrow Bereavement care to Mind in Barnet, we also donated Amazon fire tablets to local schools for families that have no home computers and are at present looking to support local schools with collections of much needed stationery, felt tips, arts & crafts etc.
On the pitch the team are Middlesex FA over 60’s champions and our over 70’s are off to Lilleshall soon to compete in the Uk Nationals, we are also very proud to have our players represent both the England and Ireland international teams with players up to 87 years old and with more women players joining us the future looks bright as we kick off the Middlesex FA league fixtures this month and as a community team we thank the Barnet FC Supporters Association for their 2 awards in recognition of our community work.
To join us, we are at The Hive (HA8 6AG) Tuesdays 7.30pm-8.30pm and Fridays 2-3pm, just email Barnetwft@yahoo.com, everyone is welcome no matter if you can kick a ball or not, it’s all about having fun with The Barnet Walking Football Team.