MORE than 100 footballers playing under 12 Champions League club names got stuck into the Kandu Kicks Cup at Chippenham’s Stanley Park on Saturday.

The six-a-side tournament, now in its fourth year, was organised by community group Kandu Arts as part of youth sport inclusion programme, Kandu Kicks.

Kandu Kicks is a weekly project based in Chippenham run by FA coaches alongside Kandu’s mentoring team which uses grass roots football to promote inclusion and positive activity for those aged 13 to 19 years.

The football tournament on the 3G pitches at Stanley Park welcomed teams from the football programme as well as guest teams formed by partner agencies like Wiltshire Police, the homeless charity Doorway, the Amber Foundation hostel and Harbour project.

The Harbour Project, based in Swindon, aids refugees and asylum seekers across Swindon, formed a team with players from Sudan and Eritrea, East Africa.

Project manager Gracie Redfern said: “The purpose of the day is to offer all the support agencies we work with across the community, as well as all the young people involved with Kandu Kicks, all together once a year.

“The idea of partnerships is to work with their young people and the families on a variety of things to offer opportunities, build community relations and support young people.”

With each of the 12 teams representing a different Champions League club, Juventus (Kandu Kicks) won the 13 to 15 year old category while Real Madrid (Kandu Kicks) defeated Malmo FF (Wiltshire Police) in the over 16s final.

It was the second year in a row that Wiltshire Police have fallen at the last hurdle but their good spirit was praised by Miss Redfern.

She added: “The police are really good sports, they have played for four years now and all the young people want to play their team.

“They know lots of the people who attend, it was just a fantastic day because of the people who attend but it’s made by the agencies.

“The youngsters look forward to it and absolutely love it because they don’t get many opportunities to play competitive football.”

This year's Cup was once again sponsored by GreenSquare Housing Group who has been part of the Kicks project since it began and has worked together on community wide programmes with Kandu for over nine years.