The Levenshulme Community Festival 2002
Thursday 10th October
to Sunday 20th October 2002
A
celebration of Levenshulme's amenities, cultures and organisations featuring
Music,
Literature, Competitions, Sport, Art, and other Events
The 2002 Multicultural Festival in Levenshulme, South Manchester was hailed a great success as it united its many different cultures in a ten day celebration of its new multi million pound redevelopment.
Tony
Hennigan the co-ordinator of the event said "This years festival
was the biggest and most successful to date, we are now one of the
biggest community festivals in the UK. But it was the celebration of
the village's multi cultural makes up and the fact that some many sectors
of the community joined in the celebration is the thing that made the
festival unique. It was great to see the Police join in the festival
in such an active way their support was much appreciated. We are very
grateful to our sponsors the A6 SRB, Levenshulme Pub Company, Greater
Manchester Police and BBC GMR, without whom the festival would not
have taken place."
Over 114 events were staged during the ten day party, highlights included the Food events which were staged at the award winning 'That Café' an Asian Food Festival at 'Al Markaz Al Najmi' and a Swedish Food Festival at Wisdom Fireplaces.
The Asian Food festival was more of a 'mela' with competitions and 'henna tattoo' demonstrations along with numerous food stalls.
This unique event had the whole of Levenshulme's multicultural community bracing freezing cold temperatures to taste the hot and spicy food and culture of the East.
A Film festival highlights
saw the screening of the six part TV series called the 'The Irish Connection'
by Granada TV which featured Levenshulme's Irish community. Plus a
comedy film festival showed exclusive footage of Comedian 'Peter Kay'
and 'Johnny Vegas' who both
first shot to fame when they appeared at the Palace Nightclub was screened
at Hennigans Sports Bar. BBC GMR's Irish programme 'The Parlour' staged a live
outside broadcast at the Packhorse Pub which featured the award winning Irish
musicians 'Emma Sweeney & Trish O'Grady'.
Live Musical highlights
included everything from Rock Band 'Belle Vue' whose riveting performance
at the Packhorse had their fans queuing down the A6 to get in, to classical
guitar recitals and a mini Irish Fleadh. Sporting
highlights included a national Roller hockey tournament and the Levfest
Challenge Cup which was won by 'The Farmers Arms' (Kevin Molloy, Tom
Lunny, Steve Kenny, Alan Bailey, Tony Dolan, Lee Robinson and Roger
Baldwin). Levenshulme youngsters were given the opportunity of representing
Manchester City, against Liverpool at Maine Road in a half time shoot out sponsored
by website 'www.Levenshulme.com'
Greater Manchester Police's 'Beat the Bobby' 'Childrens Penalty shoot out' was hailed a great success by the number of children lining up to take part at the Arcadia Sports Centre. Every child was awarded a medal and a certificate and the '147 Breaks Football Academy', which is based at the centre, was awarded a trophy for all its hard work.
Finally unpaid stalwarts of the Levenshulme Community were awarded their own Oscars at the Levenshulme Community Oscars which were staged at the Levenshulme Catholic Club.
The festival has once again been made possible through the support of the A6 SRB partnership, Levenshulme Pub Company, Greater Manchester Police, BBC GMR, ALL FM Radio.
