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 The George Best Community Cup – Belfast 2010, builds on a successful 3-day, cross-community and cross-border football tournament delivered in 2009, this event has an anti-racism and anti-sectarian theme, which included teams coming from Scotland, Republic of Ireland and across the communities of Northern Ireland (including both sides of the community in East Belfast from the interface).
The focus of the Cup is on two age groups – Under 13’s and Under 17’s, and in 2009 we had a total of 31 teams or 520 young people participating. Approximately 80 adult volunteers and coaches accompanied the young people over the three day period of the Cup. 2009 saw the first year of this event, and was delivered by a small group of volunteers who had never previously been involved in sporting events in the local community, or indeed been involved in cross-community and cross-border work at this scale. In many ways this event was unique, and proved to be a significant catalyst for development in the lives of individuals and the wider community. The event was a huge success, with an understandable number of areas in need of development and lessons to be learnt.
Due to the recommendations from the evaluators, and the recession, the event was planned to be delivered at a smaller in scale to focus more on quality and depth of experience rather than focus on quantity alone. However, after sending around expressions of interest to teams across UK and ROI, the demand for places in the tournament has meant that the 2010 event will need to be at the same scale as 2009. We feel strongly, that when there is a high level of enthusiasm for such an event, this is an opportunity to develop the event and bring people together from such diverse backgrounds and provide opportunities to enhance respect and understanding. Having had such a successful year in 2009 and learnt a lot we are looking forward to the 2010 George Best Community Cup which will be taking place on
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