Ellan Vannin

Ellan Vannin (Isle of Man in the language of the Manx) is the representative team of the Man isle, which is located in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. The team is representing the Manx folk; the Manx Gaelic is not only a small minority language, but ceased to exist as primary language within the 20th century. During the 18th century the Manx was a very vivacious tongue, spoken by the majority of the population of the small island. The annexation to the kingdom of Great Britain in 1765 led to a suppression process, desired by political and social pressure, in favour of the English language. Despite the establishment of the Gaelic Manx community for the conservation of the language, the group with Manx as mother tongue shrinked until the 1930ies to a handful elder people. From fear that the language could die out, the language association began in the middle of the last century to produce tape recorders in order to preserve the original language. By this time only a few highly talented speakers were alive. In 1974 the last person with Manx as mother language died. Nowadays as a result of relentless effort of language activists that revitalized the language, more than 1000 people command Manx as second language. The efforts were even supported by the schools and preschools of the isles, offering the possibility to learn Manx from 1922 on. Today again several young people have Manx as mother language and the Manx language has become again a very important part of the culture of the isle. The isle of Man is indeed supposed to the British Royal Family, but is not part of the United Kingdom and in consequence not a member of the European Union. 979 the parliament of the isle was founded, existing uninterrupted until now. This is unique in the world. It consists of two houses and is called Tynwald or Tinvaal in Manx. The representative team of Ellan Vannin offers the players the possibility to represent the isle to the outside and to testify the culture and tradition. Requirement for being incorporated within the team is to be born or to descend from the isle.

Ellan Vannin at the EUROPEADA

This team is firstly participating at the EUROPEADA in South-Tyrol. With its tradition in football the team is surely an enrichment of the tournament.

The squad at the EUROPEADA

Goal: Glenn Walker (Corinthians AFC), Mathew Quirk (Douglas Athletic AFC), Christian Cellamare (Union Mills)

Defence: Ben Bradley (St George's AFC), Chris Cannell (Corinthians AFC), Alex Harrison (St George's AFC), Tom Smith (Laxey AFC), 

Harry Weatherill (St George's AFC), Jack McVey (St George's AFC), Sam Caine (St George's AFC)

Midfield: Connor Doyle (St George's AFC), Frank Jones (St George's AFC), Rhys Oates (St John's AFC), Harry Rothwell (St John's United AFC), Kane Ridings (Corinthians AFC), Sean Doyle (Corinthians AFC), Joshua Thomas (DHSOB AFC), Joey Morling (St George's AFC), 

Offence: Calum Morrisey (St George's AFC), Declan Sharkey (Derry City), Furo Davies (Rushen United AFC)