UCFB chairman and CEO Brendan Flood has been speaking about the growth of the university across his native North West.

As we come to the end of the first year of our new and expanded Manchester Campus, Brendan looked back on UCFB's journey so far, including the beginnings at Burnley's Turf Moor.

He said: “We started with 63 students in Burnley. That was really a project for me where I wanted to give back into Burnley especially and allow students who like me, when they’re 18, want to work in sport.

“So I created the university that I would go to.”

UCFB left Burnley for Manchester in 2016 for the Etihad Stadium. Now, our North West-based campus spreads across Greater Manchester, from Trafford to Tameside and the city centre to Salford. Click here to find out more about what our Manchester Campus offers.

With fantastic facilities in such areas as Quay Plaza, Exchange Quay, Belle Vue and Piccadilly, the new £16million campus had enabled us to help our students hugely to achieve their academic and career goals.  

Brendan added: “When you look at what we’ve done in Manchester, we were mainly stadium based at the Etihad.

“We’ve kept the excitement of the stadiums with our Premier Events programme and that has seen us bring in masterclass speakers and a lot of big conferences, seminars and summits at Old Trafford and the Etihad.

“It’s really important to us to keep that as the heart and soul of what we do, and to bring in more specialist facilities where we can centre the students.

“Centring them in the business quarter and in the media quarter in MediaCityUK is something which is very special.

“It’s the only media centre in the UK. To have 500 of our students down there learning about what’s happening on a contemporary basis is going to give them a lot to think about, and they can learn from the people they meet on a daily basis.”

He went on to compare UCFB’s presence in the North West now to when we started out at Turf Moor.

“Where we are today,” he said, “it’s a much bigger institution, and students from all over the North West and all over the UK all want to come and study with us.

“I’m very proud of our roots and to keep our presence in the North West is central to everything we do.”

He finished: “I would encourage anybody to come and enjoy an open day with us and to see some of the great speakers that we have as well as the industry specialists who are close friends to the institution.

“They’ll get to know them, they’ll get internships and opportunities to work with those employers.

“Three years will pass before they know it. At the end of it, they’re going to be a bigger, stronger, smarter and very very employable.”

To find out more about the wide array of undergraduate degree courses on offer at our Manchester Campus, click here.

You can also learn all about UCFB and kick off your sports industry career by viewing a prospectus here.