YORK City’s popular Walking Football and Sporting Memories sessions have been recognised with a National League Trust award.

The initiatives saw club secretary Lisa Charlton collect the Best Project for Older People prize for 2017, on behalf of City’s Foundation team, at Celtic Manor Golf Club in Newport.

Both schemes have expanded over the last ten months with the assistance of funding from the National League Trust.

City’s Walking Football provision has grown from one weekly get-together catering for 20 people to three attended by 60 people, including a ladies-only session at Huntington Secondary School on Wednesday evenings.

Further meet-ups take place at Burnholme Community Hub on Monday morning and Vale of York Academy on Thursday nights.

A Walking Football tournament, featuring teams from other regions will be hosted, meanwhile, this summer and regular social events are staged, such as the annual Christmas party.

The Sporting Memories group meet every Friday morning in the 1922 Bar at Bootham Crescent with more than 20 people regularly attending.

Different themes and sporting generations are covered every week and guest speakers have included Match of the Day commentator Guy Mowbray, as well as City chief executive and former Celtic captain Jackie McNamara.

As part of the Dementia Awareness Week campaign, board games from past eras, such as Beetle Drive, were played at one session in May, while several people enjoy both Walking Football and Sporting Memories

One - Barry Stokes – has even become a City of York Council community champion, having first got involved in the former, before going on to voluntarily deliver gatherings for the latter.

Walking Football has been run by the Foundation for two years, while the Sporting Memories’ project was only launched last August.

Commenting on the award-winning programmes, City Foundation manager Paula Stainton said: “Both schemes have had a massive impact on the lives of the people who participate in the sessions, as well as the volunteers that help run them.

“There is all sort of amazing work being done up and down the country by National League clubs, so it’s really lovely to be recognised for our achievements. We have a really consistent group of regular people who attend the sessions and they are added to every month, with ages ranging from late-30s to mid-80s.

“In the past, we have always been very young-people orientated and offered a wide range of activities for primary school pupils through to those in their early 20s, who attended out Kickabout sessions. But, a couple of years ago, we made a conscious decision to greater reflect the whole of our fan base, which meant engaging more with older age groups in our community and I’m absolutely delighted we have received an award for that work.”