A week long programme of events saw around fifty children and young adults between six and seventeen participate in a programme of coaching designed to combat racism within football and local communities. Each day the participants received a selection of coaching sessions including passing, control, turning, shooting, running with the ball, dribbling and team play. The week was broken up with a day spent with specialist goalkeeper coaching provided by Adam McEvoy, a student at the University of Worcester which went down really well.
Kick it Out is a National programme which works throughout the football, educational and community sectors to challenge racism and work for positive change. The One Game, One Community weeks in action are always well supported within Worcester and with football being a ‘universal language’ it is a tool used to raise awareness of racism not only within the sport but life in general.
Throughout the coaching week keynote speeches were delivered and debates held on topics relating to racism and how we / they can have a positive influence to discourage racism.
Jon Wilson, Community Football Development Officer said, "Racism is a difficult topic to tackle, however, using football as a tool to combat and raise awareness helps us to challenge racism and work towards positive change. The main theme through the week was that football is fun and everyone should be allowed to have fun as football is an inclusive not exclusive club." Jon went on to say “This week has developed a core nucleus of young people who are able to spread the word that Racism is not acceptable, each year we put this on the message spreads further”.
The fun did not stop at the end of the week either as thanks to Sue Bentley and the Worcester City Supporters Trust, the children were invited to St Georges Lane ‘the home of Worcester City FC’ to train on the pitch. They spent an hour training on the pitch before the game and then led both teams and the Mayor of Worcester out at the start whilst wearing Kick it Out t-shirts and parading with the anti-racism flag.
The day was made even more memorable with some of the Worcester players and management team coming out and taking part in the sessions and the names of the children were published within the match day programme, which was produced for the game against Welling and the following match against Chelmsford.
At half time every participant came back onto the pitch and had a penalty before settling down to watch the second half from the stands. Worcester mascot, Georgie Dragon, joined in the fun and was a huge hit with young and old alike.
Thanks goes to the coaches who gave up their time during the week; Paul Lewin (Birmingham City and Worcester Lions), Ted Grizzell (Worcestershire FA), Adam McEvoy (Worcester University), Andy Cooper (Worcester City Council sports development). Also thanks to the local community police officers who were assisted by Richard Bentley and Shawn Cannaway to support the coaching delivered at Worcester City F.C.
Final thanks go to all partners involved within the project, in particularly Jon Wilson (Worcester City Council) & Sue Bentley (Worcester City F.C Supporters Trust) for coordinating the project and delivering it with such great success.