Club focus - PFT Foxes

Manchester-based PFT Foxes have come on in leaps and bounds over the last year. James Warrener caught up with the club to find out more.

How did you get started and why PFT?

PFT means “Politics Free Touch”, but nowadays it can mean whatever you like! (“Pretty Friendly Touch”, “Practice For Tom” and “Pretty Funky Tunes” are some of our personal favourites). It started as a bit of a joke name that we had for our summer social league team, but ultimately, it’s become one of our biggest values. We really care about making sure people who train, play. That means everyone gets treated as an equal and the team stays fun and inclusive. 

Initially the plan was simply to play in the summer league, but we enjoyed playing together so much Jordan Crosse (our self-appointed team manager) took the bold decision to enter us into all three rounds of the Development NTS! The rest really is history. 

What’s your vision?

We’ve already achieved a lot as a club: qualifying for Elite Mixed on our first attempt last year (2021) and repeating the trick with our Men's team this summer (2022). 

In 2023 we want to grow the club so that we have a team in both Elite and Development competitions. But more importantly we want to live up to our reputation as the team who love winning together and have the most fun on tournament days!

We also have an exciting announcement that we will be formally rebranding as ‘Manchester Foxes’! While PFT will always be in our hearts (and we’ll probably still call ourselves that on the field), we want people to be able to find us more easily. So, ‘Manchester’ will be a key feature on our socials and team sheets from now on. 

 What challenges have you faced?

We have a wonderfully diverse range of players. It’s something that we love but making training fun for new recruits while being challenging for experienced players can be challenging sometimes. 

One of our biggest match-day work-ons for next year though is to stay deep and run hard. If we are to keep competing with the top teams in England and beat our 10th place finish at Mixed Elite NTS this year, we need to really nail our playbook.

What key bit of advice would you give a club post Covid?

We only formed towards the end of Covid but one key thing we have realised is the importance of making training fun every week for everyone. 

It can be easy to get technical during some sessions but that can put new players off – finding the right balance is key. We always try to make sure training is a positive place to catch up with your mates, learn something new and let off some steam.

Who is your best player? 

Everyone brings something unique to the team so it’s very hard to say, but we are pleased to have nine Foxes selected for various England squads this autumn! 

Some people who most definitely deserve a shout-out though are James Simons, Jo Devine and Mike Rice. They were all well-deserved winners of our end-of-season MVP awards. 

• James has just been selected in the Men's Open training squad which we are all delighted about.
• Jo won gold with the Women's 27's at the Euros this summer with that slaloming run through the opposition on the hooter! 
• Mike made some standout performances during our Men’s season and was a big factor in our team being promoted to elite next year. 

But in all honesty, our club has an abundance of talented people who do all the unseen work too. We are lucky to have people who want to play and great coaches who set the PFT standards we all aim for. 

What would you say as thanks to your key volunteer?

Jordan Crosse – you beautiful man. Thank you for making the ridiculously impulsive decision to make us a fully affiliated, legitimate touch team. Thank you for making the even more ridiculous decision to enter us into Development NTS – and then do most of the admin as well! We are forever grateful for your organisation, patience (especially when coaching) and Peter LaFleur (Dodgeball) inspired team talks. 

PFT train on Mondays, between 6pm and 8pm at Alberts of Salford, Greater Manchester.