Manchester City Football Club received the royal seal of approval as HRH The Princess Royal paid a visit to the Club’s Foundation, City in the Community (CITC).

Marking the first royal visit at the Etihad Campus since The Queen at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, The Princess spent time meeting participants and seeing first-hand how the Club is empowering lives through football across Manchester.

City in the Community, founded 28 years ago, uses football as a tool to enrich local communities and tackle a wide range of social problems.

The Princess was welcomed to the Etihad Stadium by Conrad Prendergast, 22, a former CITC apprentice turned full-time community coach. Curious to learn about the history of CITC, The Princess observed a number of projects including a gang awareness initiative delivered to a local school, a girls’ football tournament, powerchair football for disabled young people and a walking football lesson for senior players.

Former Private Mike Swindells, 27, from Wythenshawe helped highlight the Club’s disability programmes to The Princess. Mike was seriously injured after he stepped on an improvised explosive device while on a routine patrol in Helmand province. He has since become an integral part of the Club’s ‘One City’ disability project, which has helped more than 8,000 disabled people get involved in sport over the past three years.