Tidy Touchlines: New Campaign Tackles Litter Across Grassroots Football
A new campaign encouraging grassroots football to tackle litter, reduce single-use plastics and protect the places where people play officially launched in Manchester in September.
GLL, Manchester FA, MCRactive and Manchester City Council joined forces to launch Tidy Touchlines – a new campaign designed to help keep football facilities, sports grounds and surrounding green spaces clean, while encouraging more sustainable habits across the grassroots game.
The campaign officially launched at Hough End Leisure Centre on Saturday 19 September, alongside a community litter pick at the site.
Small actions. A big difference.
Every weekend, thousands of players, coaches, volunteers and spectators use grassroots football facilities across Manchester.
Unfortunately, matchdays can also generate significant amounts of waste – from plastic drinks bottles and coffee cups to energy gel wrappers, food packaging and discarded sock tape.
The impact goes beyond how facilities look.
Each year, hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds can be lost dealing with litter across sports facilities. Even a single discarded plastic bottle can damage expensive grounds maintenance machinery, resulting in costly repairs and delays to essential work such as grass cutting and pitch marking.
Tidy Touchlines aims to change that.
Rather than simply cleaning up litter once it had been left behind, the campaign encourages everyone involved in grassroots football to think differently about the waste they created in the first place.
Players are being encouraged to use reusable water bottles, spectators to bring reusable coffee cups and flasks, and teams to consider how they could reduce unnecessary single-use plastics and packaging on matchdays.
And where waste can’t be avoided, the message is simple: put it in the bin, not on the pitch.
Introducing Tidy Touchlines pop-up bins
As part of the campaign, new Tidy Touchlines pop-up bins were introduced at Hough End, with plans for them to be rolled out to other football facilities across the region.
Designed to provide an easy and highly visible way for teams and spectators to dispose of their rubbish, the bins formed one practical part of a much wider campaign.
Tidy Touchlines is ultimately about creating a change in behaviour.
Manchester FA, MCRactive, GLL and Manchester City Council want clubs, teams and individuals to consider what they brought with them on matchday, what they left behind and what small changes they could make to reduce their environmental impact.
Grassroots football relies on having good-quality, welcoming places for people to play, and we all have a part to play in looking after them.
Litter might seem like a relatively small issue, but across hundreds of fixtures every weekend its impact quickly adds up. It costs facilities time and money, can damage grounds equipment and ultimately takes resources away from maintaining and improving the places where people play football.
Tidy Touchlines isn't just about asking people to pick up their rubbish. We want to encourage everyone involved in the game to think about what they're bringing to football in the first place. Something as simple as switching to a reusable water bottle or coffee cup can make a difference.
If we can combine those small changes with everyone taking responsibility for leaving a facility as they found it, collectively we can make a huge difference.
Respecting the planet is about the small choices we make every day and the collective difference those choices can create. Tidy Touchlines is a great example of partners and local communities coming together to protect the places where people live, play and spend time. We’re proud to be part of a campaign that turns these simple actions into positive, lasting change across grassroots football.
Tidy Touchlines launched at Hough End
Tidy Touchlines officially launched at Hough End Leisure Centre on Saturday 19 September, alongside a litter pick that brought partners and the local community together to help clean up the site.
But the campaign didn't end when the litter pick finished.
Following the launch, Tidy Touchlines is set to begin appearing at more football facilities, while clubs, teams, players, coaches and supporters were encouraged to get behind the campaign and make cleaner, more sustainable matchdays part of grassroots football across the region.
The message was simple: next time you're heading to football, think about what you're taking with you – and what you're leaving behind.