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Bolton Wanderers Community
Trust held its first judo competition on Saturday 19 June as the
Premiership side’s Goshia Mosque-based satellite sports club joined
up with Bolton Judokwai as part of the Premier League 4 Sport
initiative.
Great Lever’s Goshia Mosque
has been home to judo since December, with the government funded
initiative seeing English football’s elite create four satellite
clubs which practice the Olympic disciplines of judo, volleyball,
table tennis and badminton.
The satellite club, which
attracts an average of 50 players aged between five and 15, saw
the judo rookies take part in their first competition.
Bolton Wanderers’ Premier
League 4 Sport Coordinator, Nicol Meredith, has seen the Mosque’s
judo sessions become a big hit in the community.
“We targeted a local area
in Bolton were very little sports provision goes on,” said Nicol.
“I was put in touch with
a gentleman who runs Goshia Mosque and tries to offer sporting
opportunities to young people but with little money involved.
It was very difficult for him to accomplish that so I approached
him with the idea of hosting a judo satellite session.”
The Olympic sport is now
well established at the Mosque and has encouraged the diverse
local community to pursue judo.
“With this being a brand
new club set up as part of the initiative within a Mosque none
of the young people had ever experienced judo.
Nicol added: “Our recent
competition saw 20 young people from the mosque and people members
from the Bolton Judokwai club all came together to compete against
each other.”
The initiative is breaking
down barriers in the community to attract and engage a diverse
set of young players who are now proactively practicing the sport.
“The project and competition
has been a great community cohesion initiative where by almost
all young people from the Mosque are all from the Muslim faith
group and came together to participate and compete against other
faith groups such as Christians and Hindu’s,” she added.
“Another barrier within
Bolton is the lack of young Asian females participating within
sport but through research and hard work the Mosque club has eight
young females who are regular participants within the sport all
of which took part in competition.”
Daniel Griffin, British
Judo’s Children and Young People Development Manager, said: “This
is a fantastic example of local partners joining forces to deliver
a sport development programme.
“We have learnt a great
deal off tailoring judo to meet local community demand.”
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