Up on the hill sits Northfield Academy, a school whose motto is ‘Learn to live well’. Myself and a group of committed volunteers aim to contribute to the fulfillment of this school motto by running a lads drop-in on Wednesday lunchtimes. By taking some time to interact and respect these young people we hope to be positive role models and listening ears for them, and what better way to do this than playing football and FIFA13? (I know, we need to update) We split our time between being nutmegged and generally shown-up skill wise in real life football and then the week after go through it all again in the virtual world. This taps into something the young people genuinely want to do, in fact, when asked what they would do with £1500 the most popular suggestion was to buy some proper goals to use in our games! Over the one and a half years(ish) this project has been running we have got to know some of the lads well, we’ve had to deal with the ball being stolen by the older students (real flashback moment that one), and suffered in the heat of the gym; through all of it we want to show our care for them and share in the classic pursuit of football. For the future we hope to develop our relationships with these young people and stay with them through their time at school.
