Evelyn Hughes, mum of Northern Ireland International captain Aaron Hughes, joined with other mums of some of the UK’s top footballers recently, to launch a McDonald’s campaign to encourage and help more mums become qualified grassroots football coaches. 

The ‘Mums On The Ball’ campaign - backed by the Irish FA, The FA, the Scottish FA and Welsh Football Trust - will raise awareness of the qualities that mums can bring to coaching and also help mums become qualified coaches by providing 170 free places on courses across the UK, including 16 places across Northern Ireland.

Evelyn Hughes teamed up with Janice St Fort, mum of Rio and Anton Ferdinand; Theo Walcott’s mum, Lynn; Debbie Bale, mum of Gareth Bale and Craig Gordon’s mum, Heather, to lend their support to the programme.

“The Mums On The Ball campaign is a very exciting initiative, which is encouraging mums to become involved in coaching by raising awareness of their skills - skills which many don’t realise play a key role in developing their children’s football abilities,” said Evelyn. “I know from my own experience with Aaron’s career just how important my support has been and I would like to see more mums avail of this great opportunity to become coaches because both the mums and the children will be the winners.”

Mums On The Ball is focusing on mums because research and experience shows that whilst many mums have the potential skills and interest to become coaches, they are often less inclined to consider coaching than others groups of society. However, the parenting skills which mums possess and their natural ability to engage with children have much in common with the skills needed to coach children.

Trevor Erskine, IFA - McDonald’s Grassroots Co-Coordinator, added:“The Mum’s on the Ball campaign represents an important step in encouraging mums from all walks of life to get involved in football coaching. We welcome this new initiative as it further develops the great work that our partnership with McDonald’s has delivered in grassroots football. Over 50 per cent of the total population in Northern Ireland are women and although more mums and women are getting involved in coaching there is still a deficit of active female coaches. To facilitate and encourage more mums to get involved in coaching the IFA will be running special ‘women’s only’ coaching courses, where the participants will be able to earn their coaching qualifications in a relaxed environment.”

For further information about Mums On The Ball, to download a free guide or to register interest in one of the coaching courses, visit www.mcdonalds.co.uk If you are not a mum but are interested in coaching, then McDonald’s community coaching programme continues to be open to anyone, male or female, young or old, parent or otherwise – just visit the McDonald’s website.