Kieran Connolly, founder, Sports Fun 4 All
A big football facility about a mile from my house played a massive part in my life growing up in south London.
Many people from Lewisham and neighbouring boroughs will know it as ‘Pitz’. From the age 14, me and my friends played there for hours, practising our skills and techniques. It was around 2001 and it was completely free to use.
I can’t put into words how huge a community hub it was for young people in Lewisham to be able to come and play football without being charged.
Then, in 2011, something big happened. St. Dunstan’s College, a private school with fees of more than £26,000 a year, took over Pitz.
I heard rumours that security guards were at the entrance, the fencing had been fixed, and that you could no longer play for free.
It seemed that young people from Lewisham would no longer be able to go to Pitz.
By now, I was 24, so the takeover didn’t affect me, but I knew it would have a massive effect on young people in the area.
If you’re a football-mad kid living in Catford who plays for a league team that only trains once a week, where would you play for the other four evenings a week?
I set up Sports Fun 4 All in 2016, driven by the need for more informal football sessions for young people outside of organised football teams.
Sports Fun 4 All is a charity which aims to use the power of sport to improve the lives of children and young people in South London.
We harness sport to drive social change and combat violence, discrimination, and disadvantage for children and young people. Our unique approach uses sports as a catalyst for transformation.
At present we are the biggest deliverer of free football for young people in London, providing 17 free weekly sessions at 13 venues in Bellingham, Brockley, Burgess Park, Catford, Crystal Palace, Downham, Deptford, Eltham, Elephant & Castle, Hither Green, Kennington, Kidbrooke, and Lewisham Way, covering Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Southwark boroughs.
In 2021, I contacted St Dunstan’s to try to set up football sessions at ‘Pitz’ once more for the entire community. I wanted to make this iconic facility available for young people to play football once again.
But at first, nothing happened because St. Dunstan’s was unresponsive.
By August 2023, I had set up a session. St. Dunstan’s gives us the first hour free for our current booking every Monday from 5.30-7.30 pm, and we pay for the second hour.
We are the only deliverers of free football for boys at St. Dunstan’s.
And it’s not the only situation like that.
Another venue I have tried to book is the Deptford Green Secondary School football pitch. Unfortunately, no one can book the pitch, as Goldsmiths University has every hour of community usage.
The only other groups using the pitch are police cadets and teachers from Deptford Green, which runs soccer schools on a Saturday morning.
This is because Deptford Green Secondary School is locked in a contract with the organisation that runs the bookings outside of school hours, and they cannot get out of it.
This shocking situation means local people can’t access a facility on their doorstep while university students, many of whom won’t be from the area, get access to the pitches weekly.
Facilities costs constantly rise in overpopulated cities like London, as supply can’t meet demand. As all our sessions are free, we need funding to cover the costs for all 17 venues.
We apply for funding every week and are often unsuccessful due to the competitiveness of the process. The applications far outweigh the available funds.
If you like what we do, you can support us on our Local Giving page here.
But in an ideal world, football on pitches would be free for local kids all week – just like it used to be.
There would be no need for Sports Fun 4 All, as young people would not need to attend a Sports Fun 4 All session to access pitches.
There’s no doubt that at St Dunstan’s pitch, far fewer local children can play football there than when I was young.
If I were the government, I would put a policy in place that:
–> community facilities are subsidised for community groups from the local area, and priority access is given to them ahead of private organisations.
Realistically, the facilities cost money, so the money must come from somewhere.
Still, the government can subsidise the facilities for the community groups and not for just one hour a week or on a Friday evening when their adult 5-a-side leagues aren’t running.
Across inner London, young people from deprived backgrounds are being priced out of using high-quality facilities which are on their doorstep, but they may never access.
Or if they do it’s once a week at a community session, or by climbing over the fence or sneaking in.
And that isn’t fair at all.
(Above: Kieran Connolly. Main image: From a session with his charity)
