TEAM Nottingham has spent the morning celebrating their achievement of being named the 2015 City of Football as the Market Square was turned into a five-a-side pitch.
Just hours after the announcement was made by Sport England that Nottingham had seen off Manchester and Portsmouth to gain the accolade – and the £1.6m of funding that goes with the two-year football pilot scheme – the 40-plus partners in the bid team all turned out for pictures and to speak to the media and members of the public to spread their joy at the victory.
Team Nottingham chair Nigel Cooke, the head of One Nottingham, gave a speech in front of the Council House on a loud speaker system as people gathered to share in the good news.
Joining him were Nottingham Forest legend John McGovern and the European Cup, along with a host of partners from the bid team that helped turn their vision from five months ago into the reality of an eye-catching and creative proposal that won Nottingham the bid.
"This morning Sport England announced that Nottingham is the first ever City of Football," said Cooke in his speech, which was followed by a huge collective cheer.
"That is quite an achievement. I was a very lucky man to have chaired the group that put the bid together and the bid team stood before you now worked very hard and came from a range of organisations; the FA, football clubs, businesses, the community, the City Council, the Creative Quarter and many more.
"They came together and put an imaginative bid together which Sport England described as by a long way the very best.
"The first thing to say then is well done and thank you very much to everybody that worked at this."
After a round of applause from onlookers, Cooke invited McGovern to say a few words on what victory meant to the city – something which brought out the competitive streak in the former Reds skipper.
Asked what it meant to win a European Cup, twice, McGovern – who greeted the Sport England judges with the European Cup in the train station on arrival during their site visit last Wednesday – said: "Obviously it's a fantastic achievement because you don't only represent Nottingham but you represent England and you are playing against people in Europe.
"To come back as champions of Europe twice as we did was just a fantastic feeling.
"This is a great day for Nottingham because it shows we still have a great football tradition and hopefully this will encourage a few more people to play the game now.
"It's a competition (the City of Football bid) and I like to play in competitions and I like to win so I am absolutely delighted for Nottingham."
Jon Collins, leader of Nottingham City Council, also added: "The reason Nottingham won was because of the partnership that was built around this bid and the imagination that went into it and the support we had across the board, not just from the two clubs but from the community and the Nottingham Post.
"It just sparked people's imagination and Nigel (Cooke) did a great job leading it (the bid).
"Big congratulations to everyone involved and I think this is going to kick start a lot of excitement in communities, and there will be money to back that up, but the bottom line is this is about getting people interested in football."
The speeches were followed by a round of photos in front of the lions at the Council House with all the bid team and was then followed by a small-sided game played between youngsters from both the Nottingham Forest and Notts County football in the community projects.
This small-sided game spiraled into a huge game of football in front of the Brian Clough statue involving members from the bid team in their suits.
The City of Football programme is aimed at getting more people, particularly those aged 14-25 years, playing all forms of the grassroots game and one of the ideas is to give people the opportunity to use free spaces around the city to have a kick about like this.
Throughout the morning signs reading 'where's your football?' were held up by many of the youngsters – in reference to the fact people who haven't played the game for a period own a football but might not know where it is to be able to get it out for an impromptu game.
