The Lockdown caused issues for everyone in sport and that includes players and athletes at the very highest levels. Whilst the reasons for Lockdown were/are never in question, the impact on everyone is significant. Whilst in the overall bigger picture of things sport has its place in the pecking order, like many things it was going to return and many would be effected.

Sandbach United have this week shown how they have been able to help two former youth players by providing them with safe facilities as they prepared for their return to the Elite level of the sport.

After the lockdown in March put a stop to football and the leagues were curtailed professional and amateur footballers alike were simply cut out from having the ability to keep training. For Elite athletes this posed a particular problem as the lockdown started to ease Elite footballers were the first to be able to return to training but found that to some extent the facilities and academies remained closed.

This is when Sandbach United was able to step in to assist a couple of Elite football players by providing a facility for them to train in an isolated capacity but under the Elite football guidelines. For two local Elite players this was a godsend in enabling them to be prepared for a full return to football.

Both Tommy Doyle and Ben Hockenhull played for Sandbach as juniors before making the move to Manchester City and Manchester United respectively and returning to facility made perfect sense for them. With Tommy making the step up to the first team for city and Ben seeing out his Man united scholarship and awaiting confirmation of his now signed 3 year deal with Brentford maintaining peak physical fitness was essential.

For a couple of months until the premiership academy facilities re-opened Tommy and Ben utilised the artificial pitches to prepare most days of the week, unseen and un-noticed with the facility closed to the general public.

When the lockdown eased and pre-season began for us at the lower echelons of football Tommy was quick to return and pay us a visit. As a gesture of thanks from Tommy’s sponsors he did not return empty handed but laden with football equipment for the clubs teams (especially those with size seven feet) Bringing with him Scores of pairs of Nike football boots of which the vast majority were brand new. He also brought pairs he had worn at City and for his England debut for distribution to the kids at the club. Nike provided us with a large number of training footballs for the first team and Tommy also donated his Man City debut shirt which he duly signed to be put on display at the club.

Mike Senior the team Secretary had this to say “We were delighted to be able to offer the facility under the Elite Sportsman guidelines to Tommy and Ben after all they are Sandbach players we are very proud of. It is what we are all about here at the Grassroots Club of the Year getting people playing the game they love at all levels. When Tommy came back to visit with the gifts for us we were delighted and some of the juniors have now benefited with some quality football boots signed memorabilia and the first team have benefited with some training balls. It was a win win situation for everyone and we cannot thank Tommy and his Nike Sponsors enough for giving something back. We often get a visit from Tommy and Ben when they are not away playing and that is very special for us at the club. “

Tommy Doyle (Man City) and Ben Hockenhull (Brentford) played in the same U7 team at Sandbach which was managed at the time by our current first team manager Andy Hockenhull, It was one of our most successful teams to date with a number of the team still playing at professional academies.