Our Goal's Home Ground is Manchester

Photo Credits: Eleven Sports Media

I grew up playing football on muddy grass pitches around Manchester. I have really happy memories of being outdoors with my team, doing laps of the pitch to keep warm before kick off, seeing the parents huddled together under their umbrellas on the sideline, and taking my friend Georgia to and from matches with my mum. I also remember a lot of very challenging weather conditions which never seemed to bother me at the time. That’s the charm of grassroots football in Manchester.

As I got older my relationship with sport changed. Being a teenage girl didn’t fit with wearing an oversized football kit and getting my hair wet while playing in the rain. I wanted to fit in and do what my friends were doing, and so I dropped out of football when I was around 15. This experience taught me a lot about why so many girls disengage with sport in their teens.

I was lucky that I got back involved with sport at University which is when I first started coaching. I then moved out to Spain and got my first proper job in football working as an interpreter and host on international camps.

But there’s nowhere quite like Manchester to work in football, so when a job came up at Manchester City who I’d always supported as a child I moved back home and started my role in player welfare. During my time at City, I also got back involved in grassroots football in Manchester, but this time as a coach. I remember reading a study published by Women in Sport which found that 43% of girls drop out of sport in their teenage years.

43%… Almost half…

It resonated with me because that was exactly my experience as a teenager, and because I could see week on week in my grassroots team the positive impact that sport was having on the confidence and wellbeing of the girls. I realised that this is what I wanted to do with my life, get more girls moving and improve their lives because of it. So I left my job and I set up Our Goal.

Our Goal CIC is an award-winning social enterprise which exists to improve girls’ lives through physical activity, and we’re a proudly Mancunian organisation. Our business model involves partnering with local Manchester Universities to train and upskill women to deliver our programmes in Manchester schools and communities. So far we have created paid and voluntary work experience opportunities for 11 young people from our partner universities University Academy 92, University Campus of Football Business, UCEN Manchester and The Manchester College.

Our Move Mentors currently deliver mentoring and physical activity programmes for girls in Old Trafford, Stretford, Wythenshawe, Partington, and Hulme and we’ve worked with more than 300 girls since I founded Our Goal in 2023. Our girls consistently report improved mental wellbeing and higher levels of physical activity after taking part in our programmes, which is probably the thing I am most proud of.

So much of the work we do in local communities is made possible because of support from other Manchester organisations. Last month, the Eleven Sports Media team based in Ancoats came to donate a load of professional women’s kit to our girls, including signed pieces! McHale & Co Solicitors are also supporting our upcoming Easter Camp by sponsoring all of our participants’ and coaches’ kit through their Legacy Locker programme. And we’re particularly proud of our ongoing partnership with Wythenshawe-based organisation Duerr’s, who are continuing to financially support our community work for a third year running.

We’ve got big plans and projects coming up this year. If you’re interested in being part of what we’re creating for girls in Manchester, I’d love to chat on my email below. Partnerships, kit support, volunteering, or introductions all make a real difference to a small business like us wanting to make a big impact.

Speak soon,

Ella.

Founder, Our Goal CIC

ella@ourgoal.co.uk

www.ourgoal.co.uk