Andy Devaney
The Manchester United Foundation is swapping football boots for bookshelves in a new partnership with the Children’s Book Project, a national charity on a mission to ensure every child can own their own books and discover the joy of reading. It’s a move that combines community spirit with the kind of ambition you’d expect from Old Trafford.
Both organisations share a clear vision: to inspire young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by giving them access to education and experiences they might otherwise miss out on. And in typical Manchester fashion, they’re not doing things by halves.
The Manchester United Foundation, the charitable arm of the football club, already works with more than 70 schools across Greater Manchester—including secondary, primary and special educational needs settings—running extracurricular activities and mentoring programmes that encourage students to make positive life changes. Now, it’s adding a literary twist.
The Children’s Book Project has built its reputation on the transformative power of a good story. From boosting mental health and sparking imaginations to levelling the educational playing field, books have been their playbook for change. In the 2024–2025 academic year alone, the charity handed out over 500,000 carefully curated books through 658 schools and settings nationwide. Their next chapter? An audacious goal to gift one million books in 2025–2026 in celebration of the 2026 National Year of Reading.
As part of the partnership, eligible Manchester United Foundation partner schools—and other Greater Manchester schools who sign up—can receive up to £7,000 worth of books to gift to their students throughout the school year. Each collection is a thoughtful blend of new and pre-loved titles, covering all reading levels, and comes fully funded. There’s no cost to the schools, no cost to families—just a stack of stories waiting to be opened.
To kick things off, the two organisations hosted an event on 6 October 2025 at Hotel Football, just a goal kick away from Old Trafford. Supported by the National Literacy Trust, the session laid out how schools can get involved and how their pupils stand to benefit.
Liberty Venn, CEO of the Children’s Book Project, summed up the ambition behind the launch: “We’re thrilled to launch in Greater Manchester today and to commit to gifting over 80,000 books to children across the region this year. Our ambition to make Manchester a book-rich city, so that every child can identify as a reader, aligns perfectly with Manchester United Foundation’s own ethos of helping every young person to reach their full potential. We’re incredibly grateful to them for their help in reaching so many schools today.”
For Manchester United Foundation CEO John Shiels, the issue is as fundamental as learning to tie your boots: “One of the most basic skills needed for our young people to reach their potential is to be able to read. We see so many issues around reading with the young people we work with, with some not even owning a single book of their own.
“Through working with Children’s Book Project, we’re opening up an exciting opportunity for our partner schools to access this amazing offering of free books that they can gift to their pupils. Something that they can have forever, to enjoy, to learn from. This is an initiative that will have so many benefits and, for our young people, greatly improve their life chances.”
The initiative doesn’t stop at the school gates. Manchester United Foundation will also serve as a public drop-off point for book donations at its office on Sir Matt Busby Way. From there, suitable titles will be sorted and redistributed through the Foundation’s school network and community book drives across the year.
In a city where football dominates the headlines, this partnership is a reminder that stories don’t just unfold on the pitch—they live on the page too.
