Neil Pennington, known for playing cricket at SGS, decided to make the change to baseball a couple of years ago. After graduating from university, he moved to Canada on a Working Holiday Visa and took to watching and playing. As his work took him to various places, he never pursued joining a club after leaving Canada until recently.

Manchester Baseball Club are growing fairly rapidly with approximately 100 members covering three co-ed teams, a womens team, a youth team, and also a blind baseball team. The South of England is where the majority of baseball clubs are in the UK, however there is a Northern League with teams from Newcastle, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. In an attempt to help increase participation in the North, Neil had the idea to create and organise a new festival in the North, hosted by Manchester Baseball Club. To do so, he has sponsored the festival through his business, Pennington Wealth Planning.

The festival is open to anyone over the age of 14 who wishes to give baseball a go. There will be two tournaments of five teams. Each team will have 10 players that will be equally split based on level, experience, and playing position which does mean that the festival has a limit of 100 tournament participants. The cost for the whole day with a minimum of two matches plus access to training sessions and competitions is only £15 for full player entry. For those who wish to give baseball a go but don't wish to participate in the tournament, there will be ongoing training sessions for all skills (fielding, hitting, and pitching) throughout the day, along with various competitions. The cost for casual player entry is only £5!

Alongside the tournament, training sessions, and competitions, there will be food available to purchase and various local businesses with stalls to take a look at. There will also be a raffle to help raise money for the club with a variety of different prizes sourced from local companies and participants at the festival. All of the festival proceeds will go to Manchester Baseball Club to help improve facilities and infrastructure within the club. The club is also hoping to host the next Blind Baseball World Cup so to be able to improve the facilities for this would mean a great deal to the club.

If you are interested in attending the festival on Sunday 25 May, please follow Manchester Baseball Club on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter for all updates and for ticket purchases please go to the club website.

The SGS Community website is for everyone connected to the School, so if you have any news that you would like to share, you can email oldstops@stockportgrammar.co.uk. This is also the home of giving back to SGS. If you are curious about funding the future of the School as one of your chosen causes, you can browse our support us webpages.