The Journey 5 and Madeira Walking Football Club (MWF)
by Phill Bellamy
The summer of 2023 proved to be productive for the MWF group, their fitness and ability levels have further improved, playing twice a week has obviously been the main factor in this, there is now though a problem associated with this new found fitness, with many players having to be penalised for “not walking”, it’s not a huge problem at our sessions as the 3 F’s (Fitness, Fun and friendship) was and still is the aim, they enjoy it and that’s the most important thing.
The group has now risen to 28 players, a mixture of English, Scottish, Dutch, American’s, Canadian’s, Austrian’s, Norwegian’s and 2 Madeiran’s (this being a challenge on it’s own), the twice weekly sessions are attended by between 15/20 players, this due to a variety of reasons, players being away on holiday for weeks or even months, injuries and obviously other commitments they need to attend to. Sadly only a couple of ladies have stayed the course with the MWF challenge, we need more, that’s another aim!
Over 35 visitors to our sessions during 2023, mainly from WF clubs in the UK, they loved our home base location, the welcome they received and the “warm down” at our Taberna Poncha bar in Serra do Agua, everyone of them wanting to revisit in the future, hopefully in bringing some of their members (or club) with them, whatever time of the year they want to join us they will be welcomed, that’s another aim!
No tournaments in late June or in July/August/September, the same as in 2022, as it can too dangerous to play in high temperatures at our age.
Both of our session times were changed and still are 09:00-10:30 this to combat the heat, a wise decision which we have stayed with even during “winter” here on Madeira.
