Walking football’s popularity has had a steady growth over the years, but the demand has sky rocketed in recent months. Cheltenham Tigers is run by John Hunt who explained what has happened recently; “In the last six to eight months it’s just grown and grown and grown. There is so much it’s unbelievable!”
The registered number of players in the last five years has almost doubled, with over 100,000 active players said to be playing currently. John stated: “We now are able to have an over 50s team and a Women’s team with eight players on each side. It is going from strength to strength.”
With the growing demand for the sport, there are new areas in and around Gloucester hosting tournaments for players to get involved in. John spoke on this saying; “We are getting more and more teams popping up and hosting tournaments. You’ve got tournaments down in Almondsbury and now Evesham, so it is a majorly growing sport.
The game his dispersed in very different ways. John exclaimed, “You’ve now got six versus six, seven versus seven, eight versus eight, you’ve got hybrid football and now you’ve even got walking football with no goalkeepers. It’s amazing what’s going on!”
There is excitement growing around walking football and the potential for the game is limitless.
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