Yesterday we revealed the latest winners of our Umbro Industries scheme, and told you a little bit about what they’re going to do with their money. Today, we’ve got a quick interview with both winners, in which they give us more details on what they plan to do with the funding they’ve won…

Bangers And Fash

What exactly is Bangers And Fash?

“It’s a big creative party that we’re currently hosting in Nottingham, that includes fashion, photography and live illustration as well as music. Some of us are students here in Manchester, and we want to bring what we’ve done in Nottingham to the city and make it bigger and better. We think it’ll be ideal for Manchester, and this opportunity that Umbro are offering encouraged us to put our plans together and really go for it here.”

What will you be spending the £3,000 on?

“Specifically, we’ve got a large amount of the budget set aside for the acts that would be performing. We’re hoping to get some of the best new bands from here in Manchester, plus a top DJ from some of Manchester’s existing top nights. We’d also like to get a big headline act involved. We’ve also got some budget set aside for materials for screen-printing t-shirts, promotion, security, all that sort of thing.”

Is Bangers And Fash going to be a one-off event, or do you want to do more?

“So far, in Nottingham we’ve done five, and we’re hoping to do them here around every quarter, and we’d love to expand it towards other areas as well. Having it here in Manchester, we think that if it works here then it’ll work anywhere, and it really feels like we’d be taking it to the next level.”

How did you hear about Umbro Industries?

“We heard about it through university, we saw a poster in our department, I think we might have stolen one actually! Then we just thought that it was a great idea, and doing something here in Manchester was something we’d talked about for a long time, so it all came together nicely.”

Mike Garry

Why did you decide to apply for Umbro Industries?

“I decided to apply because I felt that there’s been a real decline amongst young men reading in Manchester, and throughout the UK generally. I believe that reading plays a massive role in our development – every person on the panel here at Umbro Industries will be a big reader. The levels of reading here in Manchester are so bad amongst young people, and the literature that they’re given as part of the national curriculum isn’t interesting to them.
I’m looking to get into schools and get young men reading and writing poetry, based around football. They think that poetry and reading is boring, but it’s not boring, what they’re reading is boring. I believe that if I give them the right materials and give them something decent to read, it’ll motivate them to want to read more and to discover their own skills in reading and writing.”

What will your £7,000 be spent on?

“The majority of the money will go on the product itself, the actual book, and also on working with a designer to make sure it looks great. I’ve got a track record of creating things like this, so I’ll make sure the finished product is something that’s beautiful and that you want to hold in your hands. So most of the cash will go on the design and distribution of the book, while the rest will go on workshops with young people and that side of things.

Is football a good subject for poetry?

“I find it incredibly difficult to write poems about football, because my opening line always begins ‘this means nothing, this means everything.’ It’s that essential thing about football that’s so difficult to capture. But there’s something about this thing that has us jumping up and down and screaming like kids, when it’s just a round leather thing and 22 galloots dancing around, that I think can stimulate passions in us. Even the most rational and sensible people, for ninety minutes nothing else matters. So if I can tap into that, get young people talking about it and their passion, we can create something really wonderful.

What originally got you interested in reading?

” ‘A Kestrel For A Knave was the first, and also a little known book called ‘A Pair Of Jesus Boot’s by a Scouse writer whose name I can’t remember. The poems of Spike Milligan, the lyrics of David Bowie, all these things just got me hooked. Even though I’m 46 and I’ll be working with 14, 15 year old kids, I understand what the appropriate things will be to get them interested.”

Do you think that Umbro Industries is a good project for creative people in Manchester?

“Yeah, it’s a great thing for people in Manchester, and it’s a great thing for Umbro as well. It gets people interested in what you’re doing who might not normally be interested. And to have a project like this for the arts in the current climate can only be a very good thing.”

Will your project be based in specific areas of Manchester?

“It’ll be specifically areas of Manchester where people aren’t motivated to read. The tougher schools and the tougher kids within those schools. It’ll be the kids who think poetry is just for girls, we’ll be showing them that it’s not.”

Thanks to both Mike Garry and the Bangers And Fash team for taking the time to speak to us, and congratulations once again to both of them for their success. If you want to find out more about Umbro Industries or apply for funding, head over to the website – www.umbroindustries.com