Homelessness remains one of the biggest problems facing the UK and hundreds of Manchester runners are once again turning up to do their bit to tackle the issue.
The Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness is an annual initiative that aims to raise money for the Greater Manchester Mayor’s ‘A Bed Every Night’ charity scheme.
Set up by the Run Wild MCR in 2019 – a running club and social society founded by students from the University of Manchester – the 24-hour marathon sees hordes of elite runners, casual joggers and newbies alike run around the city centre to fundraise.
Now in its fourth year, Run Wild‘s 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness is set to be bigger than ever, with an aim to raise more than £5,000 in 2022. That being said, we expect these wonderful lot to rack up much more than that, having totalled £12,000 in donations since the campaign was created.
The event is essentially a 24-hour group relay run where participants can join in for a 5k lap by simply turning up at the venue and joining the giant group of joggers.
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The relay itself is led by one of several run leaders flying a flag for the charity and to help identify the group which can fluctuate in size throughout the day.
Big or small and come rain or shine, people keep going to do their bit to raise money and awareness for this crucial cause.
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Credit: 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness
For anyone worrying about keeping up with the pace and/or distance, the relay is run at an accessible pace which still allows everyone to stay together for a social run and you take part for as long or as little as you like.
Relay groups tend to set off roughly every half an hour; this obviously varies depending on the overall pace of the runners but, once again, it’s not about the running itself: it’s about raising money and awareness for an issue often overlooked in this city.
Who’s taking part and how you can join
Given the charity run’s uni roots, there will of course be plenty of students joining in the relay, with the UoM Sport pledging dozens of runners and athletes to join the cause.
However, you don’t even need to be a regular runner to join in and there will be run leads, pacers and general ambassadors on-hand throughout for anyone that wants to get involved.
For those who can’t make it to the event, the organisers have even set up a virtual participation option, where people can sync their Strava app or enter distances manually to a virtual tracker accessible via the website.
An epidemic that cannot continue to be ignored
There are still an alarming number of homeless people living in Manchester in 2022: approximately 6,780 adults and children are said to be without a permanent domicile in the region, according to statistics from SocialHousing.co.uk.
Also, due to the current cost of living and energy crisis, there is an increased need to offer support this winter. Homeless charity Crisis UK estimates that one in four privately rented households were living in fuel poverty in 2020 and that figure is projected to jump by a staggering 42% by the end of the year.
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In other words, the equivalent of more than 2.3 million households could struggle to pay their gas and electricity bills this winter and, therefore, even more individuals are at risk of becoming homeless.
That’s where charitable drives like this come in. Over £2,000 has been raised through donations already and more than £300 raised in shirt sales alone.
As Lucy from Ancoats Run Club said: “we do spend a lot of time running through the city centre, especially during the winter evenings. We can see the homelessness that affects Manchester. Being able to take part in this run is a great chance for us as a club to help raise”
A Bed Every Night is putting a dint in the problem
While this is obviously a national problem, A Bed Every Night (ABEN) is already supporting over 600 people currently needing a place to stay in Manchester.
Over 4,000 people have been supported by ABEN since 2019; at the time of writing, there are 619 people by associated accommodation in Greater Manchester, with 21 different organisations helping to provide a safe place to sleep across the region.
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Better still, A Bed Every Night also includes specialist women’s, LGBTQ+, pet-friendly and ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ accommodation. The Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity is truly a lifeline for this city’s homeless population and has already helped reduce figures by more than 50%.
Moreover, as MRR chairman and founding member Chris Rider said of his club, one of their main aspirations is to have an impact in the community through acts such as fundraising and “the 24 Hour Run is a fantastic event raising much-needed funds for an important charity.”
The 24-hour marathon will be running 12 noon on Wednesday 16 November until 12pm the following day, with the laps starting from the 53two theatre and arts charity centre, located at Arch 19 on Watson Street.
Sign-up is completely free but not absolutely essential, you can also just rock up if you fancy doing your bit for charity on the day. You can also do as many or as few laps as you like — no matter how many you manage, it’s all going towards an important cause.
You can donate to the 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness 2022HERE and be sure sure to follow them on their various socials for any and all updates on the day.
Featured Image — 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness/Run Wild Manchester
News
Peaky Blinders confirm title and release date of upcoming film
Danny Jones
After what feels like an age since it was first announced, Peaky Blinders and Netflix have finally confirmed the title and release date of the upcoming feature-length film.
It was revealed that the global streaming giant secured exclusive rights to the movie last year, and it has now been revealed that it will also be released in selected theatres before it hits the platform.
With production on the long-talked-about project getting underway in September 2024, we’ve heard little else from creator Steven Knight, who has also been booked to deliver the Oasis reunion documentary chronicling their Live ’25 world tour.
However, we now know not only the official title of the film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, and that it will be dropping early next year. They’ve even shared the first poster.
Clearly referring to the series’ most famous lead character, Thomas Shelby – played by now fully-fledged Hollywood A-lister Cillian Murphy since 2013 – the teaser shows him sat astride a horse, not to mention covered in a fair amount of dirt and/or blood.
Alongside the suit and the trademark newsboy cap with blades inserted in the brim (the calling card of both the fictional and the real ‘Peaky Blinders’), it’s quite a classic look of Tommy’s.
Scheduled to release in limited cinemas on 6 March before arriving on Netflix on 20/3/2026, this will not only be the first film in the wider franchise but the first to air separately from the BBC.
While its parent network is still involved as collaborators on the flick, this is the first instalment in the IP to be distributed directly by Netflix after they bought the rights to release the show in the US.
Another look at a seemingly older Tommy Shelby (Credit: Publicity picture via Netflix)
As for The Immortal Man, both new and returning members of the cast include:
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer, 28 Days Later)
Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, Silo)
Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight)
Sophie Rundle (After the Flood, Gentleman Jack)
Ned Dennehy (Culprits, The Peripheral)
Packy Lee (Blue Lights)
Ian Peck (His Dark Materials, Robin Hood)
Jay Lycurgo (Steve, Half Bad: The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself)
Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin)
Stephen Graham (Adolescence, A Thousand Blows)
Speaking in a full press release, Murphy said: “It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me. It is very gratifying to be re-collaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans.”
Returning four years after the end of the mainline series, but catching up with Tommy at the outset of WWII in terms of the actual timelines, Netflix say that the Shelby patriarch “is driven back from a self-imposed exile to face his most destructive reckoning yet.”
Safe to say we cannot wait to be back in the world.
In the meantime, you can find out more about the next season(s) of Peaky Blinders coming to the BBC very soon down below.
Ed Sheeran at Co-op Live, Manchester – tickets, times, setlist and more for ‘intimate’ UK tour
Thomas Melia
The red-headed, guitar-strumming, lyrical genius, also known as Ed Sheeran, is back, and he’s heading to Co-op Live for one night only as part of his current UK tour.
‘Bad Habits’, ‘Shape of You’, ‘Thinking Out Loud’, Sheeran has built quite an impressive music catalogue over the years and amassed a whopping 60 billion streams while doing so.
The UK music heavyweight scored his ninth number one album with Play, all while adding two more top ten hits to his discography with ‘Azizam’ and ‘Sapphire’, driving his overall top ten singles total to 43 – that’s ‘Perfect’.
Last week, Sheeran dropped his latest musical addition, Play (Deluxe), which features 14 brand new tracks, and lucky fans who have tickets to these upcoming shows will be eager to see which ones he adds to his setlist.
Ed Sheeran at Co-op Live, Manchester – all the key info you need to know
Ed Sheeran is performing a run of ‘intimate’ shows in the UK (Credit: Press Shots via Petros Studio)
Now he’s bringing his huge hits to Manchester’s biggest indoor entertainment venue, Co-op Live, just across from the ‘Castle on the Hill’, Etihad Stadium, which Sheeran has performed at on eight occasions.
If you’re patiently trying not to get your hopes up, thinking about tickets for Sheeran’s latest gig while simultaneously saying ‘I Don’t Care’, think again.
All you ‘Beautiful People’ after tickets to go see Ed Sheeran when he plays out at Co-op Live on 7 December, you’re in luck as there’s a handful waiting to get snapped up HERE.
Ed Sheeran setlist
Prepare yourself, but with 43 top ten hits next to his name, it’s no surprise Sheeran’s setlist is quite a lengthy one; here’s what he performed at his Paris show earlier this month:
Give Me Love
Castle on the Hill
Shivers
Sapphire
The A Team
Don’t
Boat / Life Goes On
Galway Girl
Nancy Mulligan
Old Phone
Celestial
One / Photograph
Thinking Out Loud
Eastside / 2002 / Cold Water / Little Things / Love Yourself
I See Fire
River / Peru / Beautiful People / I Don’t Care
Camera
Slowly
Perfect
Symmetry
Bloodstream
You Need Me, I Don’t Need You
Shape of You
Azizam
Bad Habits
Afterglow
Merry Christmas
What are the stage times for Ed Sheeran in Manchester?
Co-op Live has a strict curfew of 11pm, meaning you can ‘2step’ to this chart-topping superstar’s tracks and get tucked up in bed before the early hours of the morning.
Anyone attending can expect the doors to open from 6pm, and not one but two very special guests as the support acts: contemporary Irish band, Biird, and folk duo, Nizlopi, who Ed Sheeran has been a big fan of for a long time now.
You can hear more about his connection with the group down below.
For those of you heading to Co-op Live, you’ll be glad to know it’s right next door to a rather famous big blue stadium and its integrated Metrolink stop.
Head along the light blue or orange lines directly to the Etihad Campus or Ashton-under-Lyne, and you can get off the tram literally spitting distance from the arena. You can find the full map HERE.
Trams run frequently on the Ashton-Eccles line to the Etihad stop, with services leaving every six minutes from the city centre and until 1:00am on Fridays and Saturdays.
Bus
You can find the full list of bus routes HERE, with the one in closest proximity to the venue being the 53 bus, which runs from Cheetham Hill through to Higher Crumpsall, Old Trafford and Pendleton, leaving just a two-minute walk to Co-op Live. You also get free Bee Network travel with any valid event ticket.
Getting there by car and parking
If you’re driving, there is limited parking available at the venue, but this must be pre-booked ahead of time, and there are designated drop-off areas.
The postcode is M11 3DU, and you can follow the signs towards the wider Etihad Campus as you get closer; directions to the adjacent drop-off points will also be signposted.
Keep in mind that congestion on the roads close to the stadium is expected to gather around two hours prior to any event, so if you are travelling on the road, these are the suggested times they provide come event day, though estimates will obviously vary:
Alan Turing Way (both directions): plan an additional 20 minutes into any journey by road.
Hyde Road (eastbound): expect an additional 15 minutes to be added to your journey.
Mancunian Way (westbound): plan for an extra 10 minutes of travel time.
There are also three park-and-ride facilities near Co-op Live, but be advised that the Velopark and Holt Town stops will be closed post-event to help safely manage crowds:
Ashton West (Ashton line) – 184 spaces and 11 disabled spaces
Ladywell (Ashton-Eccles line) – 332 spaces and 22 disabled spaces
Walk/cycle
Lastly, Co-op Live is only a half-hour stroll from Manchester Piccadilly, and you could even walk along the canal all the way to the front door if you fancy taking the scenic route.
Greater Manchester now also offers the option to hire bikes through the Beryl app, with riders able to locate, unlock, get to their destination and then safely lock up the bike all through an easy-to-use app. There are hire points just near the south-west corner of the Etihad Stadium on Ashton New Road.
For more information on all travel options, you can check out the enhanced journey planner.
Danny Jones -
15th November 2022 
