Street League

09/06/03 - Career news section

A big break in Brazil

By Andrew Eames

Evening Standard

An 18-man soccer squad from Britain is on a tour in Brazil where they will take on teams from the world's best footballing nation in 16 matches in as many days. But these players do not have Ferraris in the car park or glamorous wives waiting for them in million-pound homes; far from it, for the majority of these players have no place at all that they can call home, for they are the pick of Street League.

Street League started two years ago to use football to bring some fun into the lives of marginalised individuals in society: 70 per cent of its membership is registered homeless, and the rest are asylum seekers or people recovering from drug dependency. In two years, the register of players has passed 700, with 40-odd matches organised every week in London, Leicester and Glasgow, and it has broadened its aim towards teaching important life skills, such as commitment and leadership, through football.

The squad touring Brazil, which includes a couple of Eritrean refugees, was selected from local teams with wonderful names like Athletico Cricklewood. But before they are written off as a bunch of no-hopers with sweaters for goalposts, it is worth watching a Thursday training session on the astro-turf in Kennington Park. The players are revealed as highly skilled and motivated and could, according to their head coach Adrian Jones, take on most professional teams.

Street League was started by a young doctor, formerly of University College Hospital. In the course of his daily rounds, Dr Damian Hatton, 30, was aware of marginalised individuals turning up in the accident and emergency department as the result of accidents, fights or overdoses.

This "client group" of single males was often overlooked by state support services, who have a statutory requirement to look after families and those with mental-health problems only, and their lives were devoid of enjoyment. So Dr Hatton took contact details of those who showed an interest in football. It was when the number of teams in Street League reached 16 that he knew he was going to have to make a choice between football and his work. He gave up his career in medicine about two years ago, having secured funding from the Football Foundation and Sport England.

The Brazilian tour is a major landmark in his campaign to restore a sense of purpose and pride to the players involved. The sense of excitement during training sessions about the upcoming tour was just what Dr Hatton set out to achieve.

"You have to shift what these people believe about themselves. If you don't, there's a revolving door in the homeless sector where the same faces come round again and again," he says. A key ingredient in the process is commitment; there were individual players in Street League who were more gifted and skilled than those selected for the Brazilian tour, but they were not included because of poor attendance at training. By requiring such commitment the league is teaching a key lesson in life, that is, you cannot expect to succeed at anything unless you show persistence and commitment.

Typical of the player profile - although older than most - are defenders 34-year-old Paul McCarthy and Albert da Costa, 35. Da Costa's earlier years, which included trials as a professional footballer, were ruined by a volatile home life which put him on the streets, but Street League "has given me a new lease of life", he says. McCarthy is emerging from a period of severe drug abuse triggered by his wife having an affair. For him, the tour is "the realisation of a schoolboy dream", and the league has helped him to recover his sense of self-worth. He expects to return to work as a plumbing and heating engineer in another 12 months.

As for Dr Hatton, he is not sure when, if ever, he will return to medicine. "What I am doing now is more of a service to the community than I could achieve as a doctor." He points out that it is also serving as a preventative healthcare scheme, extracting individuals from the cycle which saw them repeatedly turning up in A&E departments, and thus saving the NHS money.

But money is the thing which threatens Street League's long-term prospects. There is enough sponsorship to cover the Brazil trip and sufficient funds for three months thereafter, but what happens after that is anyone's guess.

Find this story at
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/jobs/careernews/articles/5235822?version=1
©2003 Associated New Media

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