Football bringing young people together
last updated on: 8th Feb 2012
On Saturday 4th February over one hundred young men (from 11-24) got together to play in a football tournament. This in itself is not remarkable, what is remarkable is that this was planned, advertised and happened in four days.
On this Saturday there were two protest marches in Leicester City Centre with both the English Defence League and Unite against Fascism. The police and City Council asked for the help of all youth work projects to provide “diversionary” activities so that young people would not be drawn to the city centre and put themselves in a potentially risky situation.
So the youth worker for the Southern Edge Mission Partnership (Ali Simpson), part of the Diocesan YP4L programme, got her thinking cap on, pulled on the contacts that she has developed over the past three years with Aylestone Baptist Church who jointly run the Friday Night Football Project (recently recognised as a Fresh Expression of Church) .. together they pulled out all the stops to create this positive event.
Despite freezing temperatures and snow young people came, played, won and lost. The police had specifically asked for support with a particular group of young men who had said they were going to “get stuck in” on Saturday with the protesters. These young men played football instead!
This would not have been possible without the funding being made available through the City Council, the considerable efforts of many volunteers to advertise and staff the event, or the young people who took part, beautifully demonstrating that they would rather be gainfully occupied than just hanging around.
