Delivery of the Walking Football Programme

Delivery of the Walking Football Programme

The European Legends Programme kicked off in January 2016 and activities are being delivered over a 24-month periode.

March 2016

The kick off meeting & 1st European Oldstars – Legends Walking Football & Walking Sport Training Seminar took place on the 21st of March 2016 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Each of the 13 partner clubs took part in the seminar to present the programme the clubs’ programmes and discuss critical success factors from current projects in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

September 2016

In September 2016, during the 2nd European Week of Sports, seven national European Legends Sport events were organised in which participants from 50 years and older participated. The clubs, participating in the European Legends Programme invited Walking Football teams from grass roots clubs and community groups to attend the European OldStars- Legends Sport events in their country.

The national events were organised by:

  1. PSV Foundation (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
  2. Fulham FC Foundation (London, United Kingdom)
  3. Benfica Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal)
  4. Valerenga Fotball (Oslo, Norway)
  5. Anorthosis Famagusta (Larnaca, Cyprus)
  6. VfL Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg, Germany)
  7. VZW Voetbal in de Stad/ KAA Gent (Ghent, Belgium)
During the sport events, the clubs organised national seminars as a side event to promote the Walking Football and Walking Sports methodology.

October 2016

From the 25th until 26th of October, the 2nd European Legends Project Meeting took place in London at the Fulham FC Foundation. From each club, one project leader and community coach attend the seminar to present their lessons learned, best practices and the relationships, which were established within the region. Additionally, the coaches disccues theory behind the Walking Football and Walking Sport methodology.

January 2017

In January 2017, the third project meeting took place in Larnaca, Cyprus to develop the Walking Football and Walking Sport Methodology further, additionally, the clubs worked on producing the Walking Football and Sports Practitioners” Guide.

March 2017

At the forth Project meeting, the clubs focused on capturing all best practices, critical success factors and lessons learned through the project in order to develop the European Legends Practitioners’ Guide.

Creation of a Practitioners’ Guide

EFDN, jointly with the participating European Legends programme members, focused on gathering all best practices to create  an innovate online and hardcopy Practitioners’ Guide for a wide range of stakeholders as sport clubs, national, regional authorities, governing bodies, to promote and implement this new innovative sport activity. The guide was released at the European Legends Walking Football Festival in September 2017.

18th – 20th of September, European Legends Walking Football Festival

In September 2017, the European Legends Walking Football Festival took place at the Dutch National Olympic training centre Papendal, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

At the festival, the Walking Football and Walking Sports methodology was promoted and all thirteen participating clubs and organisations travelled with one team to the Netherlands. Next to the European Legends teams, additional 11 teams participated in the tournament.

Additionally, at the tournament an international seminar for key stakeholders was hosted to present the results of the European Legends project and to present the “Walking Football & Walking Sport Practitioners” Guide.