Silkmen star Ben is street games master
AMACCLESFIELD Town footballer raised the spirits of his entire street during lockdown by organising a game of socially distanced bingo and a quiz – all from his driveway.
Ben Tollitt, 25, a midfielder for the League Two club, decided to get to know his neighbours by organising the activities to boost morale during the coronavirus lockdown.
Ben lives with his girlfriend Grace, who is a nurse, and their one-year old son.
He posted invitations to a quiz through neighbour’s letterboxes in the hope the community could get to know each other better.
And all the neighbours brought chairs out to the end of their driveways to take part in the activities.
Ben said: “Given that it’s a new estate and many of the homes are new, all the neighbours didn’t know each other that well.
“I just thought I should try and find a way of getting all the neighbours interacting and one night I came up with the idea of doing a street quiz that we could all do while observing the social distancing.
“I wrote a load of invites and photocopied them and posted them through the doors of everyone on the street.”
Ben, who lives in Knowsley, Merseyside, said that he now has a new WhatsApp group with his neighbours and that the interaction has really boosted spirit.
He added: “We did it with everyone sat on chairs by their driveways. About half the street came out for the quiz and then the bingo which was great.
“So despite being on lockdown, people got to meet new people.
“I know it was a bit hard
community shouting down driveways and not being able to shake hands but everyone said hello and kept their distance.
“Once this is all done and we can interact more it would be great to get to know everyone better.
“It was just nice to sit out and chat with the neighbours.”