Primary Football Leagues for 2025/26
As we approach the end of another academic year, the TeamMCR affiliation details for next year will soon be arriving. Therefore, I thought that it would be helpful to provide a brief explanation of the different football options for next year.
Excel and Inspire Leagues : GIRLS Y5/6
Excel is for the more able girls and results are used to form a league table; Inspire games are “friendlies” and the results are not used for a league table.
As per last year we will be offering the central venue provision of 4 separate dates (teams attend all 4) at local secondary schools. For next year we will have 9 venues to choose from:
Didsbury HS: Monday fixtures (at Hough End Sports Complex)
Manchester Communication Academy: Monday fixtures
Chorlton High School South:Tuesday fixtures (at Hough End Complex)
Chorlton High School: Tuesday fixtures
Levenshulme High School: Tuesday fixtures (Inspire level only)
Co-Op Academy North: Wednesday fixtures (Inspire level only)
Abraham Moss: Wednesday fixtures
Whalley Range High School: Wednesday fixtures
St. Paul’s RC High School: Thursday fixtures
Excel Leagues : BOYS Y5/6
The “arrange your own fixtures” format will be retained where schools are placed in leagues according to their location within Manchester. Fixtures are arranged against the other teams in your league, with the venue and refereeing responsibility being negotiated between the 2 teams. From 2026/27 the FA are changing the format for this age group from 9v9 to 7v7. Our Manchester provision in this category will be 7v7 during the next academic year in preparation for that change.
Inspire Leagues : BOYS Y5/6
The current “arrange your own fixtures” format will not be in operation and will be replaced by central venue festivals – see lower down the email.
Manchester Pokemon Championships : BOYS Y5/6 Excel
We trialled a series of Excel central venue 7v7 tournaments this year and the entry was very high, so we intend to offer these tournaments again using the same venues of Chorlton High School and Co-Op Academy. However, we will use this structure to decide a Manchester entry into the National Pokeman Cup run by the English Schools’ Football Association. There will be 4 dates for each venue and teams will be expected to attend all of them.
Schools may enter a team into the Excel leagues and the Pokemon Championship if they wish to. Also, you can enter one or the other, the choice is yours. The entry details for this will be sent by Martin Wright before the end of term.
Inspire Central Venue Festivals : BOYS Y5/6
40 teams took advantage of the central venue Inspire festivals which were staged at 4 secondary schools. These festivals, designed for lower ability boys and totally unsuitable for higher ability players, are staged 3 times during the academic year. As this format enables teams to play multiple fixtures on each date they are ideal for developing individual and team skills in addition to raising confidence levels in the players. The venues will be St. Paul’s RCHS, St. Matthew’s RCHS, Wright Robinson College, Trinity HS and Chorlton HS South using their pitches at Hough End Sports Complex.
At the moment you do not need to do anything as all the relevant entry information will be sent to your school by Simon Jones from TeamMCR.
The link below takes you through to the TEAMMCR affiliation form.
This has already been sent to your school, but not necessarily, directly to you.