The £1m football theme park that takes you back to glory days

SWNS

Football fans bored by England's performances at the Euros can kick up their own fun - with a game that's been dubbed the "crazy golf of football".  Yard Ball gives fans the chance to relive childhood memories of kickabouts against garages against a backdrop of music, graffiti and cars from the 1980s and 90s.  The £1million attraction in Sheffield, South Yorks., aims to transport visitors back to a time when kids played out until the street lights came on.  Based on creator Scott Riley's childhood on a council estate in the city, it has seen a disused warehouse converted into an 'immersive street football-themed experience'.  He said he wanted to give younger generations the chance to experience the beautiful game in 'its purest form'.

Transcript

00:00My name's Scott Riley, I'm the founder of Yardball.

00:04My name's Oliver Booth, I'm the creative director at Yardball.

00:07So the concept really was born out of a little bit of boredom during lockdown

00:13and just based around my kids.

00:18I had the chat of what I did as a child growing up on the council estate where I lived

00:25and I played football every day but my pitch was a yard, a set of garages, a pub car park

00:33and I was explaining all the things that we did.

00:38From that moment on it was a bit like well how do I create this concept for the younger

00:45generation to enjoy and move them away from the modern day football that we know.

00:51I lived in a masonette which had a yard, on the yard we had washing lines which became

00:57goalposts, we had council garages that became nets, that was our pitch essentially

01:04and we had a pub at the bottom of the road which had a light on, a security light,

01:09so as the night drew in we would move to the pub car park, play Wembley, play heads and volleys.

01:16So that side of it was really easy and then I met Oliver, we expanded the idea and

01:24we grew it really and it was almost like how do we take a council estate

01:31environment and maybe amp it up a little bit, turn it into more of a leisure idea so we started

01:36with the foundations of a council estate and growing up in the 90s and we expanded it

01:42really and that's where Oliver came in and added more creativity in terms of the different

01:47styles of challenges and how we might enhance them and how we might change and pivot and add

01:53more things in really. A lot of the little games that and the challenges that are involved are

01:57sort of games we play at home with our kids on the garden, chipping it into buckets, chipping it

02:02through hula hoops, that sort of thing so it's combining that sort of playful edge of football

02:08without being super serious and sort of gamifying it in a really immersive venue.

02:13We obviously had a team to build it, makers and creators but no the creative concept was just

02:18defined by us both really. To get something of this scale and this size we've probably spent

02:26shy of £950 million which is a lot of money but you know I had to find investment for that

02:34and the scale of the building dictated really the budget. Families can play it, groups of adults can

02:40play it on their own, groups of kids can play on their own, grassroots teams can come, even

02:44corporates like there's literally an angle for every different element of people. Even from a

02:49social element which is really important to us it's getting people talking, it's getting people

02:54remembering. Space is just full of so much visual and little triggers and nuances that

03:00one person might pick up on and another might not but that'll just trigger a little memory or

03:05a story or a conversation starter and before you know it you're off down a rabbit hole talking about

03:11what you used to do when you were 10. There's a real common denominator there where everyone's

03:17got a different view of it but then they can come together and share very similar memories.

03:22Sheffield is the home of football, it had to be in Sheffield. We're both from Sheffield,

03:28we have got plans for all major cities. Football's universal, we've all had the

03:34same upbringing just in different postcodes so we genuinely think this will transcend

03:40across the major cities in England and yeah we already can't wait to do the next one.

Category

Transcript

Recommended