Good times never seemed so good
It's coming home, football inspiration and a photography project
Hello readers, how has this week been? Are you also in the grip of football mania?
Everywhere I look there are England flags, draped out of windows and fluttering from cars. My daughter came out of school with ‘It’s Coming Home’ scrawled across her hands in red felt tip pen (‘everyone is doing it mummy’) and asking if she can dye her hair red on Sunday night (there could be a compromise with some hair chalk).
Football’s Coming Home or Sweet Caroline is blasting out of car stereos and I enjoyed seeing people coming together in such joy in Wembley Stadium on Wednesday night.
So, with that in mind, I’m sharing some football-inspired things to do in the North West that you might fancy trying this summer.
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This week’s adventure… is inspired by football
National Football Museum, Manchester
If your family has embraced the Euros then the National Football Museum in central Manchester is a great place to learn more about the beautiful game.
It re-opened in April after a long shutdown, and according to the website there are still a few exhibits which are not yet back up and running. But the virtal penalty shootout - where you test your spot kick skills against a virtual goalkeeper - is working, as well as various other games and challenges in their Play Gallery.
They also have a series of cool family trails which you can complete as you go around the museum (and download and print at home first if you want to). One of them has an eye-catching pattern and instructions on how to make an origami football shirt, that would be very impressive.
The museum is a stone’s throw from Victoria Station so super easy for public transport. It’s free if you have a Manchester postcode, but otherwise book in advance to make sure you get in and for a cheaper ticket price.
True story: I went to the opening of this museum on a press pass as a journalist and ended up stood next to Bobby Charlton while Geoff Hurst gave a speech. I had no idea who either of them were, much to my husband’s disgust. It was a lovely evening though!
Stadium tour
There are four high profile, Premier League clubs within a 45 minute drive of our house in Bolton, but my husband is only interested in one - Everton. We bought him tickets to the Goodison Park stadium tour for his birthday (pre-Covid) and it was a great day out.
He’s been going to matches there since he was four years old, but he’s never been backstage, and you don’t have to be a die-hard football fan to enjoy this either.
We took our eldest - then a toddler - with us and she loved seeing the shiny trophy cabinets and flipping down all the seats in the VIP section to try them out.
We were allowed in the press room, where we could pretend we were in a post-match interview, and seeing the changing rooms (not as swish as you would imagine by a long way) was interesting too.
Stadium tours were cancelled during the pandemic, but it’s worth checking in as Everton plan to have theirs back up and running soon, and others are already back - Manchester City’s Etihad tour and Manchester United’s Old Trafford tour are both running, for example.
Go to the game
After so long without being able to attend a live match, it’s going to be tricky to get tickets for big games at big clubs. But there are plenty of lower league sides which are a more budget friendly alternative and make for a fun family trip out.
Mossley AFC are a semi-professional community club based in Tameside, and a good friend has enjoyed taking her two young daughters to games at their home ground, Seel Park. It’s £8 for an adult ticket and child tickets are just £1. You pay at the gate, it’s a relaxed, friendly atmosphere and barely any kids are watching a match for the full 90 minutes, so no stresses there.
My friend reports her two enjoy a run around on the terraces, bumping into school friends, playing games, eating pie, chips and sweets and wearing their matchday scarves.
Her nine-year-old said: “It was exciting, good to see our town play. I wanted to see who would win and it was very lively.”
Got any other football ideas? Comment on this post or hit reply to email me back.
Small biz shout out
You may be feeling delicate on Monday morning whatever the result of the final. If so, then the Bolton classic of a Carr’s pasty for lunch will sort you right out.
Their flagship shop is on Manchester Road near Bolton town centre (opposite where Bolton Wanderers old ground Burnden Park used to be, fittingly). I get pasty, peas and gravy to take out, it’s the lunch of kings.
They also have a load of bakery treats too, but you’ll have to join the queue. See you there.
And finally…
If you’ve no interest in football, then well done for getting this far. But in a quest for balance, and for sharing cool community based projects, then this caught my eye this week.
Marge Bradshaw is a brilliant photographer based in Westhoughton, the town where I live.
There is a HUGE amount of development and new house building going on here at the moment, and she’s launched a community photography project aimed at documenting the loss of green space.
So if you live in Westhoughton, or you work or visit here, then take a picture and upload to Marge’s website. Once it’s gone we’ll never get this space back, so it’s good to have somewhere to reflect on that.
And that’s it for another week. Thank you readers who have got to the end, you’re the ones I like the very best.
See you next week,
Jenna
She’s so tiny in these pics ☺️ I think we should all go blonde for Foden on Sunday haha