Every Friday night at Goals five-a-side centre in Nechells, inner-city Birmingham, up to 90 young males aged 14-19 gather to play football. In-between matches, Sporting Elite director Seb Hamilton and his staff mingle and chat.
Seb and his staff are not just coaches, but trained mentors too. Almost all of them hail from the same communities as the young participants; they’ve experienced similar issues and struggles.
This simple format provides vital support for young participants. Every week, not only do they have a free activity to keep them off the streets, they have an outlet to offload problems, receive mentoring support and a springboard into other positive activities. Some have progressed into volunteering as coaches, taken their Level 1 qualifications or trained as referees.
Others have gone on to play for teams in Sporting Elite’s Community League for 14-16-year-olds. In it, once-a-month fixtures are preceded by crime workshops hosted by TSA Projects, highlighting the dangers of county lines and negative peer association and giving them a place to express themselves. Last year, the programme won an FA Grassroots award.
Seb and his staff are not just coaches, but trained mentors too. Almost all of them hail from the same communities as the young participants; they’ve experienced similar issues and struggles.
This simple format provides vital support for young participants. Every week, not only do they have a free activity to keep them off the streets, they have an outlet to offload problems, receive mentoring support and a springboard into other positive activities. Some have progressed into volunteering as coaches, taken their Level 1 qualifications or trained as referees.
Others have gone on to play for teams in Sporting Elite’s Community League for 14-16-year-olds. In it, once-a-month fixtures are preceded by crime workshops hosted by TSA Projects, highlighting the dangers of county lines and negative peer association and giving them a place to express themselves. Last year, the programme won an FA Grassroots award.
“On Friday nights, we have one coach refereeing and one coach on the sidelines making sure everyone is social distancing and talking to the young men about how their weeks have gone. Those are the best conversations you can have,” says Seb.
“It’s very hard to capture their impact and put it into a report, or sell it to a funder, but it’s a little conversation on the side of a football pitch. It’s real; it’s not forced. These conversations are 10 times bigger than workshops. They’re personal.”
It is these Friday night sessions that Sporting Elite have allocated to be part of Levelling the Playing Field. As part of the project, they will capture key data from the participants, tracking their development and feeding it into an evidence base of best practice.
A huge part of achieving maximum impact is children's access to role models and lived experience. That is key to Sporting Elite’s success.
“We’ve got 11 staff and although it’s not quite a requirement that they have to live in the area where we work, it does give you an absolutely massive advantage,” he explains.
“When you’ve done it yourself, been through what these kids are going through and you’ve made the same mistakes, it does put you in such a good position because you can talk to them about it.
“If I come down in a suit and tie on a Friday night with a degree and I’ve never done anything that the kids have done, they’re not going to react in the same way. We have a laugh and a joke with them but the level of respect we receive back from them is amazing.”
Since Seb left his role at Aston Villa Foundation and founded Sporting Elite almost six years ago, he has avoided running the gauntlet of chasing short-term funding pots.
“It’s very hard to capture their impact and put it into a report, or sell it to a funder, but it’s a little conversation on the side of a football pitch. It’s real; it’s not forced. These conversations are 10 times bigger than workshops. They’re personal.”
It is these Friday night sessions that Sporting Elite have allocated to be part of Levelling the Playing Field. As part of the project, they will capture key data from the participants, tracking their development and feeding it into an evidence base of best practice.
A huge part of achieving maximum impact is children's access to role models and lived experience. That is key to Sporting Elite’s success.
“We’ve got 11 staff and although it’s not quite a requirement that they have to live in the area where we work, it does give you an absolutely massive advantage,” he explains.
“When you’ve done it yourself, been through what these kids are going through and you’ve made the same mistakes, it does put you in such a good position because you can talk to them about it.
“If I come down in a suit and tie on a Friday night with a degree and I’ve never done anything that the kids have done, they’re not going to react in the same way. We have a laugh and a joke with them but the level of respect we receive back from them is amazing.”
Since Seb left his role at Aston Villa Foundation and founded Sporting Elite almost six years ago, he has avoided running the gauntlet of chasing short-term funding pots.
The CIC’s work is funded primarily through its extensive programmes in schools, offering curriculum support to PE staff, hosting extra-curricular sports clubs and mentoring support for children in Pupil Referral Units or generally not in mainstream education.
In addition they run holiday camps, aerobics sessions for the elderly, Saturday morning kids’ football clubs and evening open-access community football sessions four days a week. They have a staff of 11 coaches and mentors. Pre-Covid, the organisation was engaging around 2000 participants per week.
“Generally funders will give you a pot of money to last, say, 20 weeks and expect you to turn 60 lads who’ve been getting into trouble into new men but what people have to understand is that this process takes time to build that relationship with our young people.
“After two weeks, one young man might be comfortable enough to tell me he’s been getting into trouble at school or college, but another one might take six months to open up. It’s really organic.
“Like other cities, we have a big issue in Birmingham with postcode rivalries. But we get lads coming to us from across the city and those rivalries are set aside. I don’t think there’s many other sessions like it around.
“I’m from Birmingham, I’m invested in this city, and I don’t like what the kids are doing. If we can contribute to addressing these issues using football, I really feel it is worthwhile.”
Follow Sporting Elite on Instagram and Twitter or visit sporting-elite.com
In addition they run holiday camps, aerobics sessions for the elderly, Saturday morning kids’ football clubs and evening open-access community football sessions four days a week. They have a staff of 11 coaches and mentors. Pre-Covid, the organisation was engaging around 2000 participants per week.
“Generally funders will give you a pot of money to last, say, 20 weeks and expect you to turn 60 lads who’ve been getting into trouble into new men but what people have to understand is that this process takes time to build that relationship with our young people.
“After two weeks, one young man might be comfortable enough to tell me he’s been getting into trouble at school or college, but another one might take six months to open up. It’s really organic.
“Like other cities, we have a big issue in Birmingham with postcode rivalries. But we get lads coming to us from across the city and those rivalries are set aside. I don’t think there’s many other sessions like it around.
“I’m from Birmingham, I’m invested in this city, and I don’t like what the kids are doing. If we can contribute to addressing these issues using football, I really feel it is worthwhile.”
Follow Sporting Elite on Instagram and Twitter or visit sporting-elite.com