The TackleAfrica Jersey Football Marathon is back for 2021 and now is the time for your team to sign up.
Following the opening-up of the Island following the Covid lockdown, the Jersey Football Marathon is back for 2021 and will be held at the Airport Playing Fields on 7th August. Teams are being invited to sign up now!
Team registration is now open and closes on 2nd July.
What does TackleAfrica do?
TackleAfrica uses the power and popularity of football to deliver HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) information and services to young people on football pitches across the continent.
They do this by training African football coaches, games teachers and community leaders to use fun, interactive football sessions with inbuilt health messaging with their players. Alongside receiving sexual health information during football sessions, players also have the chance to access sexual health services at sessions and football tournaments, such as HIV testing, condoms and other contraception, and referrals to further clinical services.
The Jersey Football Marathon has now raised £130,213 across its 9 year history in Jersey. It costs ~£1,500 for TackleAfrica to fully train and support a coach in Africa for a year, so as you can imagine, that goes a long way in Africa supporting young people at risk of HIV and related sexual health issues.
The Jersey football marathon is back!
This is our 10th event in Jersey and so this year as well as celebrating the return of football to Island life, we’ll also be celebrating a decade of Football Marathons in Jersey, which has now raised over £130,000 for the work of TackleAfrica. Congratulations to the Jersey footballing community for raising this incredible amount!
The event is a 12-hour six-a-side super-tournament with all teams kicking off at 8am and the final whistle being blown at 8pm. Teams in squads of 8 will play approximately 20 matches over the day, each being 20 mins long. More information can be found here.
The Jersey Football Marathon is one of four Football Marathons being run this year by TackleAfrica over the summer with other venues being London, Brighton and Oxford. Overall the event has raised over £1.7m for TackleAfrica since 2005.
Local organiser, John Gamble, said: “After everything that’s happened in the past 12 months, we’re so excited to be back this year in a full format tournament.
“The charity sector has massively suffered due to Covid, but issues like HIV and FGM in Africa haven’t gone away, so this tournament is really important for the work that we do in Africa.
“We’re also thrilled that this will be the 10th Football Marathon in Jersey. Six teams raised a little over £5k in 2012 so to get to where we are today where the event has raised over £130k is awesome. We owe a big debt of thanks to the Jersey Footballing Committee and we hope we’ve given them some great memories over the years and a lot of fun.”
Thanks to the supporters of TackleAfrica
TackleAfrica Jersey would like to give a public thanks to all those in Jersey who have supported us over the years, including:
- Jersey Sport – venues, kit hire and support
- Les Quennevais Sports Centre and their amazing grounds crew!
- St. John’s Ambulance – health and safety
- All physios who have helped us over the years!
- Charlie Browne, Jersey Football Combination
- Dave Kennedy, Jersey FA
- Europcar – logistics
- Jersey Youth Arts – Music
- DJ Nelson – AV / PA kit
- C5 Alliance – Technology needed to run the event
Local organiser, John Gamble, said: “After everything that’s happened in the past 12 months, we’re so excited to be back this year in a full format tournament.
“The charity sector has massively suffered due to Covid, but issues like HIV and FGM in Africa haven’t gone away, so this tournament is really important for the work that we do in Africa.
“We’re also thrilled that this will be the 10th Football Marathon in Jersey. Six teams raised a little over £5k in 2012 so to get to where we are today where the event has raised over £130k is awesome. We owe a big debt of thanks to the Jersey Footballing Committee and we hope we’ve given them some great memories over the years and a lot of fun.”
Football Marathon Events in Jersey
A football marathon has been run in Jersey each year since 2012. Regularly attracting nearly 200 players supporters and helpers, all contributing to raise funds for TackleAfrica. In 2020, the 9th annual Jersey Football Marathon was held at Airport Playing Fields in a restricted format due to COVID regulations. On the day 8 teams took over two sessions (4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon) playing 6 hours only. In 2021 we return to the full marathon format of a 12-hour tournament
Here are some key stats from the 2019 tournament:
- 11 teams (88 footballers) played 6-a-side football for 12 hours on Saturday 2nd June 2019 in sweltering conditions.
- Overall 772 goals were scored in 257 games, at a decent average of over 3 GPG
- Tournament Winners “Kante” had the 3rd best overall record on the day, winning all but 4 of their games
- Puyol were this year’s top scorers, notching a prolific 93 goals in their 23 games, and also had the meanest defence, conceding a miserly 31 and actually only lost once on twice on the day – one of which being their semi-final.
- Congratulations to top fundraisers RBC, who led a very impressive fundraising field with teams averaging £1,442 against a target of £1,360
Photography courtesy of James Solomon Photography.
