Everton park is on a site that used to be high rise social housing and jn the 1970s and 80s that was demolished and a beautiful park was created, a stunning green space with activity areas for locals to enjoy. It is widely known in Liverpool for having one of the best views of the city. Friends of Everton Park maintain the large park and attend to the community gardens. John is our main point of contact and he was the brains behind their new initiative, an Everton Park games. He told us that his inspiration for the games was going to Scotland and seeing the Highland Games that are enjoyed by local communities there. They have assault courses where competitors toss hay bails and build fences. A relay race filled with challenging activities. So this is what John set about creating. A space on the hill was allocated and John got a track painted onto the grass.

The course included passing through hoops, running backwards with heavy bags, rolling a large tube up the hill, constructing a jigsaw puzzle, looping rope onto cones, manoeuvring a wheelbarrow through a line of poles and finally throwing the heavy bag into a hoop.

Unfortunately no one had signed up to this first event but that was ok, in fact it was a perfect opportunity to test run the event and iron out any problems before holding the event again at a later date. After the intense heat some rainfall was welcome, Sallyann, Heetu, myself, Vikky, Aatefa and Nasser all pitched in to help set up and dismantle the course. We then ran the course with varying levels of success! It was incredibly fun with just a few teething issues that we discussed with John and the other volunteers at the end so that the next event could be a success.

The course created some fun inter-generational discussion with the older volunteers comparing the course to the hit 80s phenomenon ‘It’s a Knockout’ and slightly younger volunteers referencing 90s show ‘The Krypton Factor’ still both vintage references, clearly this format needs a reboot for the 21st century! Thanks John and everyone for a really fun day.