Football that means something

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“I never planned a single day of the St Matthews Project, but as my mum used to say, 'God works in mysterious ways.' It's a bit of redemption: I finally found a calling in life. It shows even if you've had negative experiences, you can use them. Some young men come back, bring their children. The other day an ex-coach brought in his new baby. Hopefully we'll see their kids play with us long-term! You may never know the difference you make, you may never see it. You may not be there to see the seed you planted blossom.”

We wrote about the St Matthews Project earlier this year when they won a major Football Association award.

The Project is celebrating its tenth anniversary, the FA award, and numerous other highs such as featuring on TV's Sky Sports. The Project started with one man and some casual kickabouts in a local park. We had a chat with this man, the founder of the St Matthews Project, Lee Dema. He gave us some background to the story of what has become an achievement that has positively touched the lives of many people. It is his words that start off this article.

Lee is a Londoner, born and bred. He grew up in Tulse Hill and Brixton, at one point being re-housed to the Loughborough Estate in East Brixton. He recalls leaving Strand Grammar School – now Elm Court School in Brixton Hill – with three 'O' levels and not a lot to do. Lee recalls, “There weren't a lot of jobs about, I lacked confidence, and I drifted into the wrong crowd. I'd given up footie in my teens. I'd draw a parallel between then and now, there's not the jobs and there are young people without a feeling of self-worth.”

Later on, it was when Lee was living on the St Matthews Estate in Brixton and he took his daughter to Brockwell Park for a kickabout with a football that things started to change. “Kids from the estate with nothing better to do, who had never left our block, and with their parents OK, tagged along, that was the seeds of the St Matthew Project.”

“I was a Parent Governor at Jubilee Primary School and introduced a ‘Friday Football’ after-school club. We ran an Easter tournament in 2004 and Lambeth Council and L&Q Housing got involved. A hundred kids turned up for a tournament in Jubilee playground! I was then asked to volunteer to run a summer holiday football kickabout. It was supposed to run for six weeks, but that was ten years ago and now here we are! Though my knees have gone. That happened during the early kickabouts.”

“In 2005, I got a little funding from the Football Foundation, a small grant and a football kit for a team. I started with two teams, U13's and U17's. In 2008, I got a big three year community grant from the Football Foundation, which was match-funded by the Walcot Foundation, which only gives out awards in Lambeth. Walcot have been really good to us, funding us ever since.”

“Then I went full-time as 'Football Development Officer', under the Football Foundation's advice, now I'm 'Project Manager'. I'd been working as a volunteer for four years and it had become unsustainable with the demands of the project and family. One of my daughters answered our phone one day and said, ‘He’s out with his other family!’ But the grant changed that."

Christmas 6-a-side winners 2007

“In 2008, I started a girls-only project. It was a turn-up-and-play approach,six-a-side and five-a-side. They won the Street Games Fives London finals two years running (2013-2014) and went onto play at St George's Park for the last two years of national finals.”

“The very first team I ran, U13's, used to play in the Tandridge League. That took them to fixtures as far away as Edenbridge and Tunbridge Wells. I was driving a mini bus around the home counties because we never had any parental involvement, but it was really rewarding."

“In March 2011, the Project became a charity. The difference? It became run even more properly. I do fifty hour weeks now, I probably need more staff. I do have an Admin Officer for a couple of days a week, funded by Comic Relief. It is just as well, now we have to show evidence for all that we do, which is a huge strain on time and resources. The more successful we are, the more funding we need to draw in, as we're a free service. Obviously, it's difficult. Six of the current staff came through from when they were playing from ten years old.”

"Now the charity is based in the bowling green pavilion in Brockwell park, where there is a classroom for coaching and other courses we run. We play in a more local league nowadays, the London County Saturday, and the teams usually use public transport, sometimes hiring a bus for games in Rotherhithe or Brentford."

“In 2011 our under-13 team won the London Saturday League Cup, at Hackney Marshes. We won in extra time. We'd put a mini-bus on for parents. At the end everyone ran onto the pitch. That was quite something. This year, the girls team won a penalty shootout at the Street Games London Finals - that was quite dramatic.”

As it is Christmas, we asked Lee for his Christmas wish-list for the Project:

• “More coaching hours”
• “To get into local schools and to use their facilities”
• “Equipment, balls, the usual!”
• “We run a second hand boot scheme, some new ones donated would be nice”
• “A nice football pitch, full-size somewhere. I'm working on it”

Lee concluded, “It was never about football. It was about helping kids where I grew up. Doing it here means something to me. I see the same issues, the same problems – even the same addresses sometimes. ‘Same scene, different props.’”   

You can view our earlier posts in our Index here.

More, from the St Matthews Project website:

The St. Matthew’s Project started life in the summer of 2004 and has developed, literally, from a kick-about in the local park for young people from one estate in Brixton, St. Matthew’s. The origins of the project are linked to an even smaller ‘community’ – Springett House – a large L-shaped block on the southern edge of the estate, backing onto Brixton Water Lane. The young people from Springett House were initially extremely reluctant to interact with their peers from the rest of the estate but barriers were broken down by organising a series of friendly football matches and the creation of ‘Springett F.C’, the forerunner of today’s St. Matthew’s F.C.

The young people from Springett soon came to see themselves as part of the wider estate community and that they had many shared interests and experiences with other young people from around the estate. Using the same approach, the young people from St. Matthew’s came to interact with their peers from the nearby Tulse Hill Estate and surrounding streets, overcoming long-standing hostilities and coming together under the SMP banner.
The Project now regularly engages with over 150 young people every week, has secured grant funding since 2004 from a variety of agencies, developed over 100 F.A qualified coaches from level 1 to 3, developed girls football in Lambeth and consistently provided free, fun football activities to young people living within one of the most deprived 10% SOAs in the country. In addition to football specific activities we’ve arranged trips, encouraged youth volunteering, delivered accredited training courses and healthy lifestyle workshops, and provided one-to-one support to our young people wherever necessary.

Working closely with Lambeth Council and other local agencies, we have now established a recognised hub in Brockwell Park, continuing to attract young people from across the SW2 / SW9 area and providing them with new opportunities for personal development, in order to help them fulfil their potential.