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THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

COUNCIL MEMBER GALE A. BREWER

CITY HALL

NEW
YORK, NY 10007

www.council.nyc.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2010

***MEDIA ALERT***

Contact : Shula Warren

(212) 788-6975 (Office)

(347) 563-1295 (Cell)

BREWER WELCOMES KNOWSLEY,
ENGLAND METROPOLITAN
BOROUGH COUNCIL IN NYC ANNUAL NYC for the NINTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR SINCE 2001

Gale Brewer, Council Member New York City is pleased to
announce the arrival of the official Representative party of the Metropolitan
Council of the Borough of Knowsley, England to City Hall on Friday,
March 19, 2010. The Borough Council will be represented by Councillor Dave
Smithson, honorable Mayor of the Borough of Knowsley, and Senior Councillor
Norman Hogg.

 This delegation has been visiting New
York City annually since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, with a
Youth Representative Squad of eighteen young men who spend two weeks in the United States
competing in soccer tournaments. Starting in 2002, the Council decided to start
the trip visiting New York City
hosted by the Manhattan Soccer Club.

In the aftermath of some of the darkest hours in New York City’s history, our friends in England
felt a need to reach out to us in an offer of friendship and camaraderie. For
the citizens of Knowsley, World War II is a real memory. In England’s darkest hours, America stood by them. Now, they
wanted to stand with New Yorkers. They raised money for NYC firefighters and
for the Manhattan Soccer Club scholarship fund. Then, at a time that no
visitors were coming to NYC, they came. At a time when visiting teams from
nearby communities refused to send their children over our bridges, they sent
their children across the ocean in a plane. The first year, they came with over
40 leaders, citizens and children to stand by us in unity and strength. They
have come back every year since.

On Friday afternoon, March 19, 2010, at 4:00 PM, Council
Member Gale Brewer will present proclamations from the New York City Council to
the Youth Representative Squad of the Borough of Knowsley, England in the
Red Room, at City Hall. These proclamations will welcome these young men to our
wonderful city and honor their commitment to sports, fair play and friendship.

About the Borough of Knowsley: The Metropolitan Borough of
Knowsley is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside,
England, adjacent
to Liverpool.  It was formed in 1974 by
the merger of several districts in the county of Lancashire, and is comprised
of the towns of Kirkby,
Prescot, Huyton, Whiston, Halewood and Cronton.

About the Manhattan Soccer
Club (MSC): MSC is the top Premier and Community youth travel soccer
organization in the New York City
metropolitan area.  With more than 50 teams at all levels of competition
fielding over 750 boys and girls aged eight to 18, MSC is also one of the
largest clubs in New York State.

The Club’s home fields, including state-of-the-art turf
and grass East River fields and Icahn field, and the excellent grass Kantor
fields, are on Manhattan's Randall's Island which is easily accessible via the
Robert F. Kennedy (Triborough) Bridge. In addition to training on its home
fields, the Club holds practices in Central Park, Riverside
Park, Chelsea
Waterside Park,
Pier 40, and Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
As many people know, Randall's Island is being
completely redeveloped, and in the not-so-distant future the Club expects to
centralize much of its training sessions on these new grass and turf
facilities.  The Club began using the first of these 18 new fields on
Randall's in the fall of 2008.