An exciting new partnership between We Love MCR Charity and Groundwork has successfully awarded four local communities with the funds to transform unused areas and turn them into green spaces.
After one of Manchester’s most iconic charities, We Love MCR, heard of Groundwork’s competition, it fell in love with the idea immediately and hopped on board to double the funding available for projects within the borough. This has meant four communities have now been awarded this transformational opportunity.
The generous donation is helping to bring more ideas to life and will equip communities with the skills to design, install and maintain natural features to create communal spaces.
"I wish our alleyway looked like that" – Well now it can…
A panel of judges reviewed nearly 50 applications from across Greater Manchester, scrutinising community need, group creativity, and inclusion of nature-based-solutions that tackle climate change.
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The four lucky winners are Pioneer Quay in Deansgate / Castlefield; Pigeon Park in Longsight; Blooming Amazing Community Alley in Trafford; and The Ginnel Garden in Edgeley, Stockport.
Pioneer Quay is a canal-side site based in Castlefield, which has been disused and neglected for a number of years, and this funding aims to transform it into a real hub of community activity and a vital green lung in the heart of the city centre.
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The team behind the transformation planned for Pigeon Park – which is the informal name for a prominent triangle of grass in the centre of Longsight that’s gained its nickname thanks to the flock of pigeons that congregate there – are hoping the space will become somewhere people will stop to “read a book or just enjoy a bit more of what nature has to offer.”
Blooming Amazing Community Alley is an unusual wide-sectioned alleyway that backs onto a primary school in Gorse Hill, where there’s been flytipping, contaminated bins and broken glass for many years – but this funding offers the opportunity to transform the alley into a creative and inclusive community space.
The Ginnel Garden in Edgeley is an intergenerational project that engages neighbours of all ages in growing, creating and spending more time together, and while some creative steps have already been taken to improve the space, the group are keen to create a climate resilient alleyway which could help to inspire other communities.
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Funding will help Pioneer Quay become a vital green lung in the heart of the city centre / Credit: WLMC
Funds will equip communities with the skills to design and install communal spaces / Credit: WLMC
Speaking on the awarding of the whopping £24,000 funding, Marie O’Neill-Steinegger – Grants Officer at We Love MCR Charity, who was also on the judging panel – said: “The last 14 months have really shown us how important green spaces are to communities [and] having spaces in nature is so vital for everyone’s mental health, for general physical health and allowing communities to come together.
“It’s been fantastic reading all of the applicants’ stories and hearing about the great work happening across the city.
“We can’t wait to follow their progress and see how they develop.”
— Groundwork Greater Manchester (@GroundworkGM) April 14, 2021
Groundwork’s experienced landscape architects and community coordinators will be supporting each of the four projects throughout the summer to help design and install their new community spaces ready for use.
“Funding for green spaces can be hard to come by, and we’re so thrilled we’ve been able to support these four groups.” Amy Wright from Groundwork Greater Manchester added.
“I can’t wait to see these climate resilient and nature-friendly Eco Streets come to life.”
Featured Image – WLMC
UK News
Manchester Marathon to host the 2025 English Championships
Danny Jones
More running pedigree beckons for 0161 as this year’s Adidas Manchester Marathon has been officially selected as the host of the 2025 English Championships.
Set to take place on Sunday, 27 April, which is now the UK’s largest day of running in recent history with the London Marathon taking place simultaneously down the other end of the country, Greater Manchester is once again set to transform into one of the most popular races in Europe.
Known as favourite personal bests given its ‘fantastically flat’ nature, an estimated 36,000 runners are set to descend on the city centre and beyond, with countless more expected to spectate.
With the Manchester Marathon officially being selected for this year’s national championships by England Athletics, there’s even more reason to line the streets.
We are delighted to announce that England Athletics have selected us to host the English Championships 2025! 🏆We’ll be welcoming some of the best endurance athletes to the iconic 26.2-mile course in April.
As per an official update on the race website, the elite competition is due to see more than 50 athletes compete for titles, including 22 participants currently in the Men’s Category and 29 in the Women’s.
The line-up at present includes 2024 Men’s winner Adam Clarke, who finished the event in a ridiculous 02:16:29 last April and, fingers crossed, Women’s champion Charlie Arnell is expected to defend her title this year too.
Arnell, who won on her marathon debut, completed the Women’s race last year in a stunning 02:37:12 – a feat she trained for all whilst full-time for the NHS clinical systems team.
Simply staggering stuff.
The fierce competition between the elite waves will begin first thing on event day before the hordes of runners eventually follow in their wake, and we’re sure it’s going to be an absolute blockbuster.
As well as hosting the English Championships, this year will also mark the first new finish line in some time as the 2025 Manchester Marathon as the home stretch has been changed from the familiar tarmac of Talbot Road.
Last year’s Manchester Marathon was one of the biggest ever, not only seeing record numbers of participants but nearly £30 million raised for the local economy and £3.7m for charities alone.
A member of The Manc or two may or may not also be taking part again this year – by which we mean they definitely are – so watch this space and we hope to see you cheering on the sidelines.
Public places for this year’s marathon have well and truly sold out but you can still register your interest for 2026 HERE.
Better Man has bombed at the box office – but is the Robbie Williams biopic any good?
Danny Jones
So, Robbie Williams’ biopic Better Man has been out for a little while now and the question on many people’s lips – you know, apart from ‘why is he a monkey?’ – is, quite simply, is it any good?
Many of you may have already seen it, others may have absolutely no interest in hearing about Robbie‘s already well-publicised exploits (be they in ape form or otherwise), or maybe you’ve just been waiting to hear whether it’s any good before heading out to the cinema.
Well, if you’re judging it purely by the current headlines circulating online, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s absolute rubbish. So far, Better Man has ‘tanked’ at the box office, making just over $1 million compared to a budget of nearly $110m (£90.8m).
However, given how pivotal the US viewing figures are, a big chunk of the commercial disappointment has come down to Americans largely not knowing who Robbie Williams even is and it’s no surprise that it’s done a little better here in the UK – though still not stellar. But again, ticket sales aside, is it good?
Better Man – Review
I wasn’t sure a (very good) CGI monkey Robbie Williams film was going to be any good either based solely on the trailer, but they nailed it.
*Once again, some spoilers ahead – though it is his life story, so we’re not really spoiling anything…
I’ll start this off by admitting that for all his foibles and controversies of the years, I am a Robbie fan; his music was always on in my house as a kid and well into my teens. Being born in the mid-90s, he was probably one of the first big pop stars to ever enter my world.
Growing up obsessed with football too, a charismatic, mainstream rock and roll-spirited figure in the mainstream who also loved the beautiful game and even took influence from chants heard around the grounds in his songwriting always made him extra appealing to me.
All that is just to say that I’m fully aware there’s probably some bias here, so I’ll still try to be as impartial and ‘objective’ as you can be with a film review. But back to the point, the short answer is yes: it’s good – very good, in my opinion.
If you’re similarly fond of the frenetic, funny and ferocious showman, you’ll obviously have a vested interest in looking back on his career thru a (somewhat simian) Lens, but even if you’re not, I still think you can get a lot of of the film and a greater insight into a captivating life story.
Monkey see, monkey do—make me sad, very sad…
This scene (among many) had us welling up. (Credit: Paramount Pictures)
For starters, put simply: as daft as it may seem, the monkey thing does work. It may come across like a strange gimmick when you first see the trailers but it doesn’t take much digging to realise that there’s quite a well-thought-out three-pronged approach behind it.
One of the first things the 50-year-old singer said on the press tour for this film is that he’s always felt “unevolved” and it’s something that’s brought up a couple of times in the film itself, so making him an ape rather than a modern Homo sapien is one way to way to communicate that.
Plus, not only does it obviously make any sad moments – and there are a lot of them – even more emotional and tear-jerking, especially during the scenes during Robbie’s childhood, but it also plays into the sad reality that he’s felt like a performing monkey for the majority of his life.
When you stop and think about the reasoning behind it feels a lot more considered than on first impression, and it certainly helps you empathise and, more importantly, sympathise with the troubled character you’re seeing on screen.
Robert vs Robbie
A very clever movie poster to boot.
And that’s pretty much the rub right there: this was always going to be at least a somewhat self-indulgent watch, not just because it’s a biopic but because it’s Robbie and that’s what his persona is about – but it is and always has been a performance in every sense of the word and the film does a great job of trying to distinguish ‘Robbie’ from Robert.
From seeing the origins behind being given that name specifically, his younger years and affectionate albeit mostly fraught relationship with his father; how the boom of Take That engulfed his entire world and even more so once he went solo, as well as the version of himself he’s shown to the world for last three decades, it’s clear he’s often struggled to find the line between the two himself.
It’s also very important to state the cheeky, cocksure Robbie Williams you were expecting to watch the rise of throughout this biopic has wrestled with a much lower opinion of himself than you could ever imagine. It’s a driving force behind the film and manifests in all manner of problematic and unpleasant ways, just as it did in real life. You see him see a lot of them in the crowd throughout the duration, in fact.
Because for anyone who isn’t aware, a lot of Robbie’s experiences are problematic and unpleasant; the early days as a boyband commodity, his substance abuse, struggles with mental health and beyond are all laid bare on screen in fairly graphic detail at times. A lot of the situations these issues spring from would feel hard to believe were it not for the fact it’s a true story with very little embellishment, if at all.
Manchester references are a bonus
One of the things that did stand out as a particularly surreal aspect of the film was the handful of references to Robbie’s intersection with Mancunian culture, which simultaneously felt familiar and somehow like going back in time to peep behind the curtain at a world that very few saw first-hand.
Again, the behind-the-scenes examination of how Take That transpired and those very dangerous, inappropriate and frankly unlawful series of events in nightclubs over on the likes of Canal Street feels like a fever dream (as it did for Robbie).
Perhaps the biggest buzz we got was the not-so-surprise appearance by the Gallagher brothers and ‘The Robster’s obsession with Oasis. The look is exactly what you’d expect and Liam‘s accent might not be perfect but it still gave us a thrill without feeling like pointless lip service.
All that being said, is the much-talked Robbie biopic a good enough film to warrant popping out to the pictures? Well, I’d certainly say so. Not only are the visuals and the CGI itself pretty flawless, but the motion capture is done so well that it never felt like I was taken out of the film at any point – even the very particular Stoke and Cheshire accents of Robbie and Gary Barlow are very convincing.
We knew there was going to be lots of humour too but there’s also a lot of impressive stuff the director does that I wasn’t expecting.
One of those is the transitions: there are lots of clever tonal switches done with great camerawork and effects (particularly during one driving sequence and some of the flashback frames) and they really do help covertly shift the mood so some of the darker moments don’t give you full on whiplash.
And lastly, the director’s fingerprints can be felt all over the movie as Michael Gracey’s The Greatest Showman pedigree certainly makes sections of the film feel more like a musical than I was expecting – but in a good way. Big bold cabaret choreography fitting of the man himself.
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After all, we all know most Robbie tunes are bangers but seeing them brought to life in these new and interesting ways really does make Better Man a better film than we’d even hoped for and it’s certainly good enough to be performing a lot better than it is at the box office right now. Maybe give it a go.
As far as I’m concerned, big stunning set pieces like this are just the tip when it comes to what makes the Robbie biopic a good film.
Emily Sergeant -
21st June 2021 
