Nottingham has been crowned as Sport England‘s City of Football, edging out bids from Manchester and Portsmouth to receive £1.6m to get more people in the city playing football regularly.

Due to start in early 2015, the two-year project sees the city’s strategic partnership – One Nottingham – tasked with uniting public, private and voluntary organisations to create a city-wide programme that will do "whatever it takes" to attract new players, particularly those aged 14 to 25-years-old.

Competition for the City of Football prize – launched in April – was fierce, with all three candidate cities putting in compelling cases.

According to Sport England, the strength of Nottingham’s bid was the focus on using insight to respond to the challenge of getting more people playing the national game. A key element is a digital platform – ‘Playbook’ – which will help providers planning to put on football activities in the city target the right people, in the right places, at the right time, with relevant offers.

“Football is this country’s most popular team sport but there is still a real capacity to grow,” said Phil Smith, Sport England’s director of sport.

“Nottingham has an exciting and inventive response to the challenge of getting more people to play the game and we will look forward to working with them to make this happen.”

A Sport England spokesperson confirmed to Leisure Opportunities that the £1.6m arose after Sport England decided to cut that amountfrom the Football Association’s (FA) funding following its first Payment for Results review in March.

Despite this, a Sport England press statement stressed that the City of Football process had the “full support of the Football Association”, while the FA's director of National Game and Women's Football, Kelly Simmons, also gave the scheme her backing.

“Football is our national game and it is vitally important that we get as many people as possible playing across the country in a way that they want at times convenient to them,” she said.

“Nottingham’s plans showed real strength in opening up opportunities for everyone in the city to get involved in the game, and we look forward to sharing our expertise, discovering new insights, and applying the findings of the pilot across England going forward.”