As part of Levelling the Playing Field’s ‘Sport for Development’ month, we’re asking our specialist partners how they use sport and physical activity to deliver positive outcomes for ethnically diverse children in their communities.
To an onlooker, the Levelling the Playing Field sessions run by Sporting Elite in the Nechells area of Birmingham might look unremarkable. Every Friday night, up to 100 youngsters from the area gather and play football.
But if that onlooker stayed to watch a bit longer, they might spot that something a bit more complex than a lads’ knockabout was taking place. “This is what a lot of people don’t understand,” says Seb Hamilton, CEO and founder of Sporting Elite. “There's so much more to it than turning up and kicking a ball around.”
Seb and his team are qualified football coaches but also trained mentors. They know how to engage their participants on a person level, find out what’s going on in their lives, what their issues are, and how they can be supported.
Young people aged between 14-18 attend for all sorts of reasons. As Seb explains: “Some come simply to release stress and play football with their mates. Another lad might be in a bit of bother and needs to talk to a positive, friendly face. Someone else might have more serious issues going on and needs our help.
“What we do is give everyone that time and space to do all of those things. Here, they get to know us, we get to know them and we find out where we can take them next.”
Participation is huge, with up to eight pitches in use for over two hours. Teams compete in leagues and there are highly-coveted prizes such as football shirts or boots for each month’s winners.
Beforehand, in-between matches outside the five-a-side courts and afterwards, coaches engage the players in conversation. There’s mutual respect and a good vibe, even if youngsters may hail from different ’rival’ postcodes.
There were a few incidents when sessions began earlier this year, but now they are extremely rare and the ‘Goals’ venue have praised the behaviour of all participants.
“We are quite hot with things like swearing and manners. We tell them to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the staff. We have got a great crop of kids. A lot of them are now going to college or uni and it’s great to see where they’re heading and what their ambitions are,” says Seb.
In many cases, the Sporting Elite team have been instrumental in their young people taking positive directions in their lives. They go the extra mile to offer mentoring support, follow up on any issues at school or college, seek out job openings for them, and offer leadership, coaching, volunteering or apprenticeship opportunities.
Officers from West Midlands Police often visit sessions to engage with the young people. There are open and honest conversations where both parties will discuss local crime hotspots, known issues and break down barriers. “These types of conversations are important and wouldn’t happen if we didn’t have these sessions,” states Seb.
Sporting Elite’s philosophy makes them a perfect specialist delivery partner on Levelling the Playing Field as their work aligns with our common goals:
- - Increase the number of ethnically diverse children taking part in sport and physical activity
- - Prevent and divert ethnically diverse children from becoming involved in the Criminal Justice System
Some youngsters who attend Sporting Elite’s LtPF sessions are caught up in serious issues such as county lines or violence. Often, the biggest help Sporting Elite can offer is just listening.
“They might not want to be at school or college and for them home might not be a great place to be either, so when they’re with us, they can be themselves,” explains Seb. “We have a laugh, we treat them with respect and we get the same back in return. There might be conversations which go a bit deeper but at some sessions there’s none. Either way, it’s not forced.
“They know we’re here for them. They get a friendly, familiar face at the door. We’ll smile, say hello and over time we’ve taught them to do the same in return. We show them how to treat people and just engage them gently and get to know them through general conversation.”
Those conversations are typically pretty casual, but the coaches can expertly steer them towards offering guidance and direction in their participants’ lives. For example, post-match chat recently drifted towards Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang being stripped of the Arsenal captaincy due to a breach of club discipline. “We’ll use that as a way of discussing how to show responsibility and that there are always consequences to your actions, even if you’re a £200,000 a week top-flight footballer,” explains Seb.
Those conversations are only effective if there’s respect and a connection between coach and player. It definitely helps that the coaches are local role models who the young people look up to.
“Coming from the same areas as our young people is massive,” Seb says. “You’ve walked the same streets as these kids and you’ve been attracted to the negative things in life where it looks cool to be the bad guy. You understand the situations they’re in and they know we ‘get it’. We have a joke with them but the most important thing is we’re up front and honest.
“First and foremost this session is about keeping these kids out of Birmingham city centre on a Friday night. Absolutely nothing positive goes on there for them. But once they’re on board, our impact goes a lot further than just being a diversion.” Seb is thankful for the Sport England Tackling Inequalities Fund (TIF) money that Sporting Elite received to sustain them through the pandemic. Secured by the Alliance of Sport, TIF was distributed to Levelling the Playing Field’s specialist delivery partners and proved a lifeline for many. For Seb, it funded pitch hire, staffing and monthly prizes; ensuring that support for many young people who were affected disproportionately by the virus could be sustained.
“That funding has been so good because it’s given us time to develop the session to where it needs to go,” says Seb. “Where it’s come from to where it’s at now is amazing.”