Last month, UCFB’s Student Union in Manchester hosted a charitable staff vs student’s football tournament, in order to raise money for Comic Relief. With ten student teams and two staff teams competing, and over 150 people in attendance, the day proved a monumental success, as the UCFB community came together to raise over £130 for a worthy cause.

Here, Kyle Sadler, a BA (Hons) Sports Business & Coaching student and UCFB Etihad Campus’ Student Union President, shares the highlights of the day and the tournament’s unexpected victor…

“The event was jam packed with entertainment from start to finish. With the student teams proving too good, both staff teams were unfortunately eliminated in the group stage.

The highlight of the tournament has to go to one team being 2-0 down in the quarter finals with three minutes left to play, only to bring it back to 2-2. We then entered into a sudden death penalty with over 50 students standing on the side-lines, watching the drama unfold. Little did they know that they would go through on penalties and go on to ultimately win the tournament!

With less than three weeks to plan the event, and incorporating a last minute fixture change due to two late team arrivals, I want to congratulate all those in involved which allowed this event to happen. I never thought that this event would bring over 150 people together, for a brilliant cause.

I am so grateful to have been elected as the Student Union President for the next year and I am looking forward to hosting more events and getting to know every single student here at UCFB Etihad Campus. Well done to all teams competing; the event would not have been as successful if you weren’t for you. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.”


Joey Kulbat, the Student Support Advisor, praised the students who voluntarily gave up their time to make the event the success it was. He said: “Kyle Sadler was fantastic in helping organise, promote and run the event, and Cameron Felton was a great help with refereeing. We also had 3 students volunteer to help take photos and videos: Toby Coxon, Ben Baker and Tara Delahoyde, whose help we really appreciated.”