Inaugural community cohesion cup between GMP and Bangladeshi Arts & Sports Association

Date published: 04 December 2021

The inaugural Community Cohesion Cup friendly football match between Greater Manchester Police and the Bangladeshi Arts & Sports Association (BASA) took place at Hopwood Hall in Middleton on Sunday 21 November.

It was a competitive match played in a friendly spirit with a good crowd, supporting both sides and cheering on the side-lines, including colleagues, family and friends of the players.

The score after 90 minutes of entertaining football was an emphatic 5-0 win for BASA Rochdale.

After the final whistle, it was all handshakes and friendly banter again as everyone appreciated the fun game of football that was played.

The Man of the Match was unanimously agreed to be awarded to GMP’s goalkeeper, Lee Bracey, a former professional footballer who became a police officer in 2003.

The GMP team presented BASA with a shield to commemorate the event.

The event was organised to promote partnership working and to further strengthen the positive relationship between the police and the local communities in Rochdale and the work being carried out by both GMP and BASA to promote community safety.

The match was organised by Muhammad Abdulaleem, equality and community cohesion officer from the Rochdale Council Neighbourhood Services team and Azizul Hoque, from GMP.

Abdulaleem said: “We work very proactively at RBC with the GMP to promote community safety and have a very strong positive relationship, which is something we are trying encourage within local communities too.

“It was great to see members of BASA, who live and work in Rochdale and carry out arts and sporting activities, to keep young people positively engaged and away from crime, get together and network with police officers from GMP via something they all enjoy, a football match.”

Sergeant Hoque added: “Sharing community initiatives between GMP and organisations based in our localities such as BASA Rochdale are invaluable. BASA supports individuals to be engaged in positive activities and support their health and wellbeing, further developing a strong relationship and promote community safety and are valued by the work they deliver.”

Bikash Das, chairman of BASA, said: “It was great for all our BASA Rochdale members to meet and see so many police officers, not in uniform and get to chat to them openly and find out that they are actually just like them, sharing similar aims and values.

“We all want to keep our communities and our families safe from crime. There have been many recent incidents of violent crime in Rochdale, and we wanted to stand together with GMP.

“In sharing a football pitch and a game of football with them, we wanted to show that we will support them at all times and we respect their continued great work they carry out daily to keep our communities safe.”

BASA is a non-profit organisation which was set up in Rochdale in 1990. It was created for the Bangladeshi community to keep socially and physically active, from organising football matches to helping anyone and everyone in any way possible, promoting community cohesion and tackling social exclusion, in particular using the power of sports and arts.