Engaging older adults with physical-activity delivered in professional soccer clubs: initial pre-adoption and implementation characteristics

Abstract

Older-adults are a priority within policy designed to facilitate healthy lifestyles through physical activity. Golden Goal is a pilot programme of physical activity-led health improvement for older-adults 55 years and older. Activities were delivered at Burton Albion Football Club. Sessions involved weekly moderate-intensity exercise sessions including exer-gaming (exercise orientated video-games), indoor bowls, cricket, new age curling, walking football, and traditional board games and skittles. Secondary analysis of data collected through the original programme evaluation of Golden Goal investigated the impact of the intervention on participants. Older-adults completed self-reports for demographics, health-screening/complications and quality of life. Attendees, n=23 males (42.6%) and n=31 females (57.4%) with a mean age of 69.38 (±5.87) (n=40), ranging from 55-85 years took part. The mean attendance was 7.73 (±3.12) sessions for all participants, (n=51). Older-adults with two or more health complications (n=22, 42.3%) attended fewer sessions on average (6.91 ±3.322) compared to those reporting less than two health complications (8.65 ±2.694). Self-rated health was higher for women (87.32 ±9.573) versus men (80.16 ±18.557), although this was not statistically significant (U= 223.500, p=0.350). Results support the potential of football-led health interventions for recruiting older-adults, including those reporting health problems.