Located at Blackmore Millennium Park, 166 Nine Ashes Road, CM4 0QR right at the heart of the community is Blackmore Village Hall and Blackmore Sports & Social Club. This amenity, the envy of many other villages, boasts excellent recreational facilities. These include rugby, football and cricket pitches with changing rooms but also a state of the art floodlit tennis court and a 3G Astroturf Multi Use Games Area with 5 aside and Walking Football size goals. This indeed was the birthplace of Blackmore Athletic Football Club.

It was back in 2015 that driven local resident Malcolm Hurford had the vision to utilise this facility. He felt age is only a number and too many had hung up their boots too early, and the answer for veterans was Walking Football as a way of carrying on playing the beautiful game and to also boost one’s fitness and social life at the excellent on site Sports and Social Club.

From humble beginnings, Walking Football took off with the formation of Blackmore Athletic Walking Football Club. Monday evenings are set aside for friendly matches amongst the group with two sessions for signed up subscription paying members: 6.30 to 7.30 pm for over 60’s and 7.30 to 8.30 pm for over 50’s.

Taking health & safety responsibilities seriously, the club requires all members to complete a health questionnaire and have got defibrillators and CPR and first aid trained volunteers.

In addition to Monday nights, our well run club has also played friendlies against other local teams and has participated in overseas tournaments in Spain and Portugal taking away up to 30 players and supporters.

We reached the quarter finals of the prestigious Mallorca Walking Football Cup in 2021 competing against big city teams full of ex professionals and internationals from Sweden, Holland, Belgium, France, Czech Republic, Bolton Wanderers FC and Nottingham Forest FC etc.

Having done well in formal and informal walking football tournaments and with so many quality players in our ranks we felt the time was right to join in 2022 the FA affiliated and Essex County Football Association endorsed Essex Walking Football League by entering both over 50’s and 60’s teams.

In 2023 our 50’s team reached a respectable mid table position and our 60’s team were crowned champions of Division 2 thus achieving promotion to Division 1 for season 2024 that re-commences in April.

We are proud that our success has given rise to England International Walking Football recognition with some of our players being called up to their training boot camps.

We hold an annual Christmas Dinner and Presentation evening in December. The latest one quite fittingly saw our founder Malcom Hurford receive a special recognition award. Player of The Year 2023 trophies were presented to winners Kevin Mellor and Alan Kier for the early and late sessions respectively. The victorious 60’s squad were also presented with their Division 2 winners’ medals and cup.

Blackmore Athletic currently play in the Essex Walking Football League. The EWFL was developed from scratch by a group of active Essex Walking Football Clubs from all corners of the County and was created with the help and expert guidance of the team at Essex County FA. The League was formed in November 2016.

The EWFL is a not-for-profit community-based organisation and is dependent upon donations from our clubs and other sources of revenue to be able to pay for our administrative expenses, tournaments and events. Our Officers and Committee members are volunteers and they give up their time freely.

The EWFL believes that Walking Football is a social and recreational sport.

Their aims and objectives are:

• The promotion of walking football in Essex.
• To support the development of the Essex Walking Football League, within Essex and the five London Boroughs of Essex i.e. Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest.
• To provide competitive opportunities with no contact between its players.
• Not to promote a ‘win at all costs’ attitude. We will cultivate an all inclusive environment in, which players can enjoy themselves.
• To help others to become more mobile and physically fit and to expand their social circles.

 

Below is a selection of photos from our Instagram feed. Click on a photo to enlarge.