Women in Sport with Katie Catherall

Sports Development Coach, Emma Toone has been working with and inspiring children in Tameside for 19 years.

Emma started off delivering Physical Education sessions in primary schools, helping to develop sports competition in the borough. She is now based at Great Academy Ashton leading the school sports partnership programme.  

Involved heavily in team sports, Emma runs a session at Curzon Ashton on Thursday nights providing primary school football for girls. She also spends a day a week at the FA to develop girl’s football. Emma told us of future projects she has lined up. “In January we are hoping to launch our wildcats programme, which aims to involve young girls in football. We want to establish a level between school and club, then involving the team in competitions”.  

As she works closely with schools, she is motivated to keep children active in the current climate. They launched their first virtual competition this year, with 4,500 children across the borough taking part to see how fast they could run a mile. Their usual annual rugby competition normally hosts 250 attendees, so the involvement this year has been huge. 

Emma works alongside Active Tameside and the Tameside Sport Network to help put sport at the forefront of people’s minds.  She is a trustee with Curzon Ashton and the Believe and Achieve Trust who, despite the lockdown, are still trying to ensure children are not missing out on keeping fit. 

Last year, Tameside School Sports Partnership and The Running Bee Foundation teamed up to complete the Dr Ron 7-mile challenge involving 23 schools across the borough. 7,000 children pledged to run, walk or jog seven miles each ahead of the annual Tour of Tameside.  Pupils organised pre-class runs, dinnertime walks and jogging breaks in between classes, everyone received a certificate on their success.  

Emma spoke on this event saying how she appreciates the work of the Running Bee Foundation. “The aims of the Running Bee Foundation match what we are trying to do in schools; encourage people to be active, improve health and wellbeing and create a sense of pride in their community. It’s a great match and by working together on projects like this or via projects funded by the Running Bee Foundation, these aims will be achieved”.  

Emma strives to inspire children through offering something they may not have otherwise. “Opportunities change every year. Olympic years are always amazing, and in 2012 we had the opportunity of taking children to the Olympic stadium with it being on home ground”. 

With the winter months drawing in and the nights becoming darker, it is harder to encourage children to keep active outside with the closure of venues. The fear for many in the industry is that children won’t have the excitement to play once the go ahead is given.  

Emma would love to see an equal opportunity amongst males and females in sport. And she expressed her confusion with male academy players currently being able to continue in football whereas female football has been postponed. It comes as a shock to many as the FA promised equal access to football by 2024. 

Emma also has picked up on a lack of females in TV, especially adverts promoting sport.  

Emma would love to see more females finding courage to get involved within team sport.