England stars Gary Neville and Michael Carrick have been out and about in the community in the last few days. Both players individually hope to encourage people to pursue a more healthy lifestyle through The FA's Charity Partner the British Heart Foundation and also raise funds for the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.

Neville vowed to help raise £1m for sick children in Manchester, after paying a surprise visit to youngsters at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and assuring them that football would play a role in providing new state of the art facilities for their use.

Through the recently established Team England Footballers Charity, Neville and his England team-mates have chosen to work with the Professional Footballers Association to help raise £1m for the new Children’s Hospital as part of the PFA’s ‘One Goal, One Million’ campaign, an initiative that has been set up to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the PFA.

Neville's visit there followed swiftly on from his Old Trafford and England team-mate Michael Carrick who gave his backing to the British Heart Foundation's newest campaign 'Beat' which encourages people to become more physically active and aware of their heart health.

Carrick conducted a training session in Manchester with three generations of a local family, including British Heart Foundation volunteer Neville Davis, his wife Kath, their daughter Anna Parker and grandchildren Ellis Davis, Francesca Yates and Kit and Heidi Parker.

Shooting into a heart-shaped goal, showing just how easy and fun it is for people of all ages to get active in the 'Teaming Up For Healthy Hearts' theme for the campaign.

"It's vital to the body in all walks of life to keep you healthy," said Carrick, after the event.

"To exercise, just 30 minutes a day, is enough to give you a more healthy heart and that's what people need to realise."

Neville and PFA Chief Executive Gordon Taylor met David Cain, Director of the Children’s Hospital Appeal to discuss the exciting plans for the new hospital. At present there are two dedicated children’s hospitals in the Greater Manchester Area, the RMCH and Booth Hall Children’s Hospital, but both badly need updating.

Neville, said: “It is a privilege to be able to give something back to the local community and even more so when you can do something worthwhile for the children that come from across the country to use this hospital facility.

“The doctors, nurses and staff at the RMCH do a fantastic job, but they are working in buildings that have been here for almost 150 years. The new hospital being built will be fantastic and it is only right that the children, their families and the health care workers should have the best facilities that are available.”

The Manchester United captain visited children on the Heywood Ward (Neuro and Spinal Injuries) and the Liebert Ward (Orthopaedic) and his surprise appearance gave the children a huge lift, including 16-year-old Kristian who was recovering from spinal surgery and 13-year-old Amy, who is due to have surgery for dilation of right choanal stenosis.

“It was brilliant to meet Gary today – it helped cheer me up before my operation,” said Amy.

Gary posed for pictures with the children on the ward and chatted to their parents while Taylor explained how football was trying to help through the ‘One Goal, One Million’ appeal and Team England initiative.

“We are very proud of the fact that we are 100 years old and we wanted a fitting celebration to mark the fact.,” added Taylor.

“Raising £1m to build a rehabilitation unit for the new Children’s Hospital is certainly that and we hope the unit will serve as a lasting legacy to the PFA and its members who work tirelessly to support projects in the community all around the country.

“It is fantastic that the England team have chosen us as one of their nominated charities for the year and their backing in donating their international match fees will play a major role in helping us to achieve our goal of raising £1m.

“Footballers don’t often get a lot of credit but this is another example of them putting something back into the community.

“Lots of the time this work goes unnoticed as many of our members don’t want publicity from the fact that they choose to try and help others less fortunate than themselves, but this is a mammoth task we are undertaking and we hope everyone supports our efforts.”

For more information on The FA’s Charity Policy and the British Heart Foundation, click here