Football may have been basking in the bonhomie of World Cup fever, but the ‘beautiful game’ hasn’t enjoyed the most beautiful press in recent times. Overpaid players, boorish fans and dubious financial management continue to dog the sport’s public image. Yet, it’s not all bad news. If there is one thing that the packed pubs and monomaniac media of the last month or so goes to show, it’s the enduring power that the game still commands over national life. Short of all-out war, few other events are able to get students out of bed before 7:30 a.m., cause a national strike (albeit for only 90 minutes stretches), or inspire flagwaving masses to the extremes of jubilation and abject despair. And football clubs are well aware of this. At both a national and a local level, the professional game is looking to harness this passion to positive effect, particularly among children.
Take racism as an example. The FA Premier League and the Football League and their member clubs have been working closely with police in recent years to enforce new laws aimed at cracking down on racist remarks from the terraces. They are also working with other governing bodies, local authorities and supporters’ groups at a grassroots level through the Let’s Kick It Out campaign. Set up in 1993, the initiative supports a number of programmes to challenge racial prejudice at all levels. On May 28, for instance, the campaign ran a one-day conference for teachers, entitled Football, Citizenship and Anti-Racism, to promote opportunities for using football as an exciting means to explore issues of racism and diversity in the classroom.
Grooming the stars of the future is certainly a key motivation for clubs to get involved in training up young people in the game. Yet, for every one Michael Owen that rises up through a club’s youth programmes, there are thousands who will only ever get to wear the first-team strip if they buy a replica from the club shop. Instead, what most clubs look to contribute from coaching football in schools and youth groups nationwide is to provide fun, team-work and healthy activity for children of all abilities. All of the Premiership clubs also have educational links with local schools and run on-site programmes that use football as a medium to teach core subjects such as maths and English. As part of its sponsorship of the Premier League, Barclaycard gives £25,000 to each of the top-flight clubs to help fund education projects focused specifically at children with disabilities. And the Prince’s Trust runs a personal development programme for unemployed young people in conjunction with 50 professional football clubs and with £750,000 per annum funding from the FA Premier League and the Football Foundation. community involvement
This non-commercial attitude to community activity is widespread throughout the professional game. Certainly, the case for healthy back streets making for healthy gate-receipts (to steal a phrase) is strong. The profile and goodwill from community involvement holds powerful appeal for commercial sponsors and other key local stakeholders. What’s more, the local community represents both its fan base and its talent pool, especially for smaller clubs.
Yet, as the World Cup reminds us, football is an intrinsic part of our social fabric. Football clubs, perhaps more than any other commercial enterprise, remain first and foremost communitybased organisations. They harbour the dreams and play out the hopes of their communities. In this sense their public mandate is broad and unavoidable. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that the football club, Brighton and Hove Albion, is among the first recipients of the new Community Mark, an award issued by Business in the Community for exemplary community involvement. Clubs of all sizes work to support charitable causes. In April, for example, more than 1,000 amateur football clubs joined their professional cousins to support Sport Relief’s Pay to Play weekend. From Liverpool to White Swan Athletic FC, players donated anything from a professional day’s pay to the team’s beer money, raising funds for vulnerable children and young people in the UK and across the world. Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of football clubs is the celebrity status enjoyed by their employees. Rather like the royals, it is taken as read that visits to community centres, hospitals and schools form part of the job for most Premiership footballers. The recent decisions by Arsenal’s Tony Adams and Sunderland’s Niall Quinn to donate six-figure sums from their testimonial games are cases in point.
High-profile players are also often the key to success of clubs’ community projects, their presence attracting publicity and ensuring interest from the public and companies alike. Millwall FC, for example, ran a highly successful campaign in 2001 when star player, Neil Harris, was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The south London club set up an appeal to encourage fans to donate empty printer cartridges to a local recycling company, which in turn donated cash to a charity raising awareness of the disease. companies
Businesses are also quick to pick up on the social impact that football can have, particularly sports companies. Nike, Adidas and Reebok all run a variety of football training camps for aspiring players, while Coca-Cola is part of a scheme to encourage fans to keep the areas around football stadiums clean. As part of its partnership with the Premiership, Barclaycard has invested £4m in supporting grassroots football through its Free Kicks programme. Other big brands building football into their social responsibility activities include McDonald’s, which recently announced it is to fund 8,000 new community-based coaches for young players over the next four years, as part of its new role as Community Pillar partner of the Football Association.
Football still has its challenges to face. Hooliganism and racism remain to be totally eradicated, and the behaviour of footballers on and off the pitch often falls below the exemplary. Yet, behind the scenes, things are on the move. As Nelson Mandela stated: “We can reach far more people through sport than we can through political or educational programmes.” Link them up, as football is beginning to do, and you really do have a powerful concoction for social change.
Leeds United’s community involvement programme sees the club in the shortlist for the Business in the Community Investing in Potential award. It has 30 people in its community team, with an equal number part-time, making it bigger than the club’s commercial department. Like many clubs, its principal focus is children. In addition to a football coaching scheme, Leeds has built a Learning Centre, which provides a range of educational programmes for local children. Staffed by qualified teachers, the impact on pupils’ attitudes and achievements is already being seen. Key-Stage 2 pupils on the recent DfES study support programme, Playing for Success, for instance, were recently shown to have improved their maths scores by 60 per cent and reading by 37 per cent.
Last year, in another high-profile education initiative, the club worked with Leeds Library Service to launch a Book Challenge. The club produced stylish postcards featuring six of its international players and their favourite book. During the much-publicised campaign over 12,000 people took part and an extra half a million books were borrowed. Suddenly in Leeds, reading was ‘cool’.
Emma Stanford became community affairs director at Leeds United in 1998. Born in Harrogate, just a few miles outside Leeds, 34-year-old Emma joined the club with strong local credentials, having previously worked as dance development officer for the charity, Yorkshire Dance.
Explaining why Leeds United is involved in community activities such as these, Emma says: “Football plays an important part in thousands of people’s lives and we can harness that power for the good of the community. Young people enjoy the stimulating environment at Elland Road and the imaginative projects that make learning fun.”
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