Sports Fun 4 All - delivering free football and improving young lives across south London
Starting out with free football sessions at Downham and Bellingham, Kieran Connolly's organisation has seen extraordinary growth. This year, Connolly's young coaches have delivered 283 free football sessions, working with 847 young people in Lewisham, Greenwich and beyond.
Kieran Connolly, founder and CEO of Sports Fun 4 All, has a mission: to provide free football for children and young people wherever there is a need for it. Against all the odds, and despite years of austerity and cut-backs, he is delivering on it.
Connolly has grown the charity from its early start at Downham Leisure centre and a concrete ball court in Bellingham Green, into a network reaching across London - as well as delivering 17 (and rising) free football sessions across five London boroughs, he runs sports HAF (Holiday and Food) clubs for children on free school meals.
Over the Easter holidays, the charity ran seven HAF clubs across Bexley, Tower Hamlets, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Lewisham. This summer, he has applied to run HAF across 13 boroughs.
Loss of public space and privatisation of sport
Connolly is driven by his passionate conviction that the service he is delivering is desperately needed. He points to the impact of loss of public space, along with the increased privatisation of sport.
But there is no shortage of opportunities for those who can afford to pay.
"Nowadays, there is football going on every night of the week - you could go to a one-to-one coach on a Monday, an Academy on a Tuesday, your Sunday league team Wednesday, development on a Thursday, showcase game Friday.
"But if your parents don't have money for that, you need Sports Fun 4 all."
He is acutely aware that many children and young people are missing out on the benefits that playing sport, at any level, brings. He lists the health benefits from being active and social benefits, alongside learning life skills.
Connolly is determined that each session should support its young players, providing a regular time in the week when they are part of a safe, structured and dependable community.
The charity's latest impact report shows nearly 50% of the children and young people attending the free football sessions receive free school meals, 69% live in social housing and 68% live in the most deprived areas.
Loss of Catford Pitz to the community
Connolly draws on his experience growing up in Catford, near the vast open pitch that was known as Catford Pitz.
"I grew up going there all the time, it was Powerleague but it was free to the community, anyone could go there." He describes how he and his friends would arrive after school and play football until late in the evening, without being told to leave.
St Dunstan's College purchased Catford Pitz in 2011 and it closed to the public.
By this time, Connolly was 24, playing in five-a-side leagues and able to pay to play football. But he is still smarting from the loss to Catford's young people. "That facility should be open to the community, somewhere young people can play. And this is why Sports Fun 4 All is needed."
St Dunstan's has made the charity a "community offer" of free use of the pitch for one hour per week, while the Sports Fun 4 All pays for another hour, allowing it to offer a two-hour free football session every Monday.
From frontline coaching to back-office strategy
Connolly played club football, worked for Millwall, Crystal Palace and Fulham community schemes as a Kickz coach, then moved over the "strategy" side of delivering youth sports projects, including spells with London Sport, London Youth and Street League.
But his heart was never in the layers of bureaucracy and "endless Teams meetings" talking sports strategy and funding. Eventually, his impatience to deliver a service that he believes young people are waiting for won out.
He describes his growing confidence and entrepreneurial attitude, but his ambition is to grow the organisation and reach more young people, rather than make money.
"We get things happening straight away"
"Young people need this provision, so I would rather make it happen and worry about getting the funding after," he says. "That's the difference between us and other youth providers, we get things happening straight away."
Connolly is about to start sessions at the newly reopened Riverside Youth Centre in Deptford. He hopes that funding will follow.
But he explains that in the constant struggle for funding, the service he is delivering does not always tick the right boxes. "It's almost too straightforward," he says.
Most of the young people the charity works with are not on the verge of school exclusion, being arrested or going to a young people's referral unit. "Most of our young people just want to come and play football every week, that's the long and short of it," he says.
"Every area that has a floodlit facility that's standing empty, while local young people can't afford to access it, needs Sports Fun 4 All."
To get involved, contact Sports Fun 4 All.
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