The session for 3rd June 2010.
We had over 20 boys present. As it was half term we had the younger boys (13 & below) aswell, so we had a 40 minute session with them and then a friendly game for the older ones. It was a 20 minutes of 2 halves and we lost 3-1.
Paradise Park Sports Project
Jan – April 2010
Introduction:
The key goal of Pro Touch Community is to ensure that every individual young person who wants to get involved in sports especially football, whether it’s for fun; as player or to volunteer as youth coach they can do so. Without any worries or concerns about their ability, gender, age, social-economic status, sexuality, race, faith or ethnicity background.
It’s important for to sue sports especially football to take steps to provide opportunities for our community coaching sessions to be fully representative of wider community.
One of our aims of Paradise Park project was to provide an introduction principles/practice of safe, ethical and effective management and coaching of young football players between the ages of 8 and 17 years old. To deliver two sessions a week, on Monday and Thursday (exclude Bank Holidays). Initially, it was Monday, Wednesday & Thursday up until February 2010.
Friendly Matches:
We started the project with no form of publicity; it was purely word of mouth and talking to the local boys and inviting them to join the session. Since the first week session, we have made steady progress. We have a core group of boys who turns up regularly and there is also some sense of ownership with the boys who take park in the session. To date, we have played over 10 friendly matches against different team, such as Pro Touch Community, two different teams from Westminster Kingsway College, and a from Hackney.
There has been lots of request from the boys to enter into a league so they can be playing regular football, as they see it as a team and they want have the feeling that they are playing for a team, rather than a community drop in session.
Coaches Feedback:
The coaches were impressed how the young people have made improvements and conducted in a mature manner, not disappointing the organisation or themselves. This resulted in a treat for the group, where they were taken to see Arsenal Youth in the FA Youth Cup Final at The Emirate Stadium.
Progression:
The progress from this has seen many of the committed and serious individual wanting to progress into playing for one of the many structured teams playing in Camden & Islington and Camden & Regents Park Youth League.
Young People Case Study:
Lucas Moira aged 14, who join the project from September 2009 showed the coaches and fellow members that he has a talent to play elite football. He was first asked to play for Pro Touch Community and later Pro Touch Soccer Academy elite. Lucas was also given a chance to train with professional football academies including Arsenal youth before going back to Peru where he now lives with his family.
This opportunity that was given to Lucas made some of the boys realise that their talent can go beyond Paradise Park as two other boys Adam and Wale 17 went on trial with other professional clubs. Adam went to an open trial for West Ham United and Wale signed for conference side Grays Athletics
Others such as Darren, Ayman etc have gone to complete FA Level 1 football coach course.
Homes of Participants:
Majority 90% of the attendees are residents of Paradise Park area along with very limited 10% friends and family members visiting the homes around Paradise Park. We have a strong policy on who’s able to access the sessions with consent forms having to be signed and handed in before any young person can participant in any coaching sessions or activities.
Cancelled Sessions:
There have been a number of sessions cancelled or ended earlier than expected due to poor weather. We are hoping this can improve over the summer, with better weather condition as there are no changing rooms or areas to wait when it rains or snowed. If the proposed redevelopment of the Paradise Park pitch goes ahead and funding is secured, hopefully this will resolve one of the major reasons why we have to cancel coaching sessions due to health and safety reasons.
Also, there have been few incidents of people outside Paradise Park areas coming to area to disrupt and threaten the boys who take park in the session. About 5 boys have been attacked in the area by boys who lived outside the side Paradise Park. However, none of those attacked happened during the session, but at the same time it has created a bit panic as some of the boys have told us to feel scared at times come out of their house to take park in the session and fear they might get attacked in the area.
The session for thursday 27th May 2010 went really well. The turn out was great about 15 boys where present. One of the spectators was Mr Paul Edwards, I’m sure he was pleased with what he saw.
At long last we’ve managed to get a space on the blog especially for our youth sport projects!
This section will be run by youth workers and young people who are involved with the various Top Corner schemes. Already featured below are:
Hub Athletic – An inspiring video report by Tim Broadbent of how Top Corner’s support of this scheme has helped several young people to travel to South Africa.
Kids Company – As Hayley Watson reports, this charity has had free use of our facilities at T47 London Bridge for several months, as well as benefiting from £1400 raised at the venue launch night.
Paradise Park – the first report from coach Mus about our kids scheme at our Islington venue.
To find out more about Top Corner’s community work, contact Martin.
As promised here is a YouTube video of Hub Athletic’s recent trip to South Africa. It is about 9 minutes long and charts the journey that 4 lads go on when they get stuck into community work and football coaching.
Hope you enjoy it and find it inspiring. Any comments/thoughts/questions appreciated!
Hub Athletic’s Trip to South Africa
Tim
In the early days of Hub Athletic I was speaking to Steve, the captain, and talisman of our team. Somehow we got talking about experiences that I had when I was growing up. I started talking about going travelling for 8 months with a couple of my mates. It was, and still is, a fairly common thing to do for people from my background. I had supportive parents, a job, and I was keen to experience more of the world, in short it was a relatively easy thing to do. I realised that what I took for granted was actually a privilege that the majority of the world will never experience. chatting with Steve I realised that coming from his background it wasn’t something that wasn’t really an option for him. He left school with no qualifications, didn’t have a job, nor the parents to financially support him. As I talked about the fun I had in India I could sense that was something he wanted to do. We discussed the possibilities and I will never forget the conclusion of that chat. It haunted me for months after it. I had agreed to take Steve to India and we had shook on it. It haunted me because I didn’t want to let Steve down, which meant I simply had to come up with the money to go, around £10,000. It turned out to be a great motivator.
One condition that I put in is that it wasn’t going to be a holiday, we are going to work, to give something to people who probably won’t be able to give anything back to us, financially anyway. We agreed to spend the 2 weeks running football coaching for street kids for Oasis India. Coaching football was one thing that we could both do and enjoy doing. We would have days out and get a chance to savour the sights, but our primary reason going was to give something.
We got the money, the trip became a leadership journey for Steve and 2 other players from hub. That decision to go that haunted me, became one of the best decisions I made. we raised over £15,000 and spent two crazy weeks coaching hundreds and hundred of kids. You can watch the video here http://vimeo.com/4869006. We thought we were going out to teach football skills, to give our time and expertise to some of the poorest kids on the planet. But as we reflected we all thought that the kids actually gave more to us and taught us more. All three Hub Athletic players came back with more determination to succeed, a wider view of the world and far more aware of who they are.
With the money left over we put towards our next trip, to South Africa! I’ve just got back from that trip and I will post a video from that soon!
Tim
(Names have been Changed)
The session for 20/05/2010 at Paradise went really well.
We organised a friendly game for the boys against one of the teams from City of Westminster College league (Ferner Tigers). The team could not make the game, but we managed to carry on with the session. We had about 20 boys in the session
My name is Tim Broadbent, A few years ago I was working with Martin Hardiman, the communities and facilities manager at Top Corner, running an inner city 5 a-side youth league, based in Waterloo, London. I was also there in a coaching capacity coaching a team in the under 16 division called Hub. We came second to another team without a coach called Waterloo. As a few of them knew each other I got to know the Waterloo guys I realised that they, as well as some of my boys, wouldn’t be allowed to enter the next league as they would be over 16. I have played a lot of 11 a-side football over the years in Croydon where I grew up. I was never that great at playing, but I knew how to run a team, but more importantly I knew the impact football can have in the lives of young people. I put it to both teams that we should join together, form one team and enter an 11 a-side team.
Both the lads and I were a bit apprehensive at first, it was new territory for us both. we had to wait a whole year to have enough players who where old enough, but after a lot of training, hard work and tough times we finally entered the West End League Division 2 as ‘Hub Athletic’. That was three seasons ago. I combined that job with coaching kids in the local primary schools to get young kids ready to play for Hub. I stayed in contact with Martin & Top Corner throughout this footballing journey I have been on. It’s been great to know that I’ve got an extra level of support available. It’s meant I’ve been given advice and has helped me getting more kids and young people playing football.
I will use this blog to record the latest developments and try to keep everyone informed!
Tim
Local youths that are supported by Kids Company, a London based charity, have been making excellent use of the T47 sports facilities. They have generously been donated the courts on Wednesday mornings, and have been working with Street League to provide professional football coaching to both boys and girls.
The football sessions have proved to be extremely rewarding for the young people, enabling them to engage more with their education, creating a valuable space for bonding, and providing them with much needed growth in self esteem and team building skills. The numbers of participants are growing by the week as news of the facility and training travels amongst their peer group, and they are working towards outdoor five a side tournaments in the near future.
“It is such a joy to watch these kids express themselves through sport. They really have few opportunities in their lives where they can accomplish, learn, and engage with each other in a positve way…having the courts at T47 is a huge asset to the work I do at Kids Company!”
-Hayley Watson
Keyworker and Sports Developer for Kids Company
* Read about how T47 raised £1400 for Kids Company here.