Inclusive 11s Open Football Session

Inclusive 11s open sessions are for people of marginalised gender identities, including trans and non-binary people and all women. Our mission at Inclusive 11s is to create gender-inclusive spaces for amateur adult football players to connect, have fun, and play competitive 11-a-side football!

This is our final Saturday open session! Join us on Saturday April 25th from 10:00-12:30. Here’s what you can expect if you come along:

• Welcome: Our volunteers will welcome you to the session and we’ll get to know each other by sharing our names and pronouns.

• Training: We’ll run a 30-minute training session to get warmed up. There will be drills for total beginners and for more confident/experienced players.

• Match: We’ll split into two 11-a-side teams and play a 60 minute friendly game of football.

• Social: We'll be going to Sandbar in Withington after the session for a celebratory social! Groups of us will be walking, cycling and/or driving there directly from the session.

Who can attend?

We invite people of marginalised gender identities, including trans and non-binary people and all women, to join us for this session. We welcome absolute beginners, players with 5-a-side or 7-a-side experience, or players who’ve played 11-a-side before but are looking to find an inclusive environment to play.

What will you need to bring?

We’ll be playing on grass, so we highly recommend wearing a pair of football boots. You won’t be turned away if you wear trainers, but be aware that there you have a higher risk of slipping and injury without boots. Shin-pads are encouraged, but optional. Be sure to bring plenty of water!

Where will we be? What are the facilities?

We play on the grass 11-a-side pitches on Hough End Playing Fields. There are many pitches on the fields and a map with our assigned pitch will be sent to you before the session. Our volunteers will be wearing pink bibs so that you can spot us on the playing fields and we will send a contact number for a volunteer who can help you find your way on the day.

Players can use the toilets at the Hough End Leisure Centre. There are gender-neutral single stall toilets on the ground floor, including a gender-neutral accessible toilet which can be opened with a national key scheme/RADAR key. You can also fill water bottles at the centre.

We do not currently have access to changing room facilities at the Leisure Centre but are looking into getting access to this for future sessions. If you have any questions about the facilities or needs that we haven't mentioned, please get in touch!

How much does it cost?

As this is our final session, we are making it free for all participants! Register for a free ticket; we'll cover the costs of the pitch.

What's next for Inclusive 11s?

The 11-a-side football team who are currently competing in the Let Them Play team will continue to play together until the final of this cup, and hope to continue as a team going forward.

We know that there is a great need for gender-inclusive 11-a-side football in Manchester. While the current directors no longer have the capacity to make this happen through Inclusive 11s CIC, we would love to to hand over our resources, where possible, to others who are working to provide these spaces. This might be through continuing the type of sessions we’ve been running, fielding a team or something we haven’t thought of. 

If this is you, please let us know on the registration for this event and we can introduce you to others who have expressed an interest in keeping things going. We’re open to ideas from the community about how we can help sustain inclusive football as we wind down.