While waiting to run an U-13 football session in an astroturf complex in
Enfield, my eye was drawn to a group of kids (12/13 years old) who
climbed a six metres fence to gain access to a locked pitch and play
football. Ten minutes later, I noticed the caretaker chase them off the
pitch and out of the complex. He then grumbled to anyone who could
listen about ‘the cheating vermin’. The rise of ‘pay to play’ complexes
and the disappearance of parks/youth clubs has pushed children into
playing anywhere they can find a blade of real or artificial grass.

This is not a singular event, it’s occurring in many towns and cities in the UK, exacerbated by the lack of housing stock and a rising population. Housing developments are being built everywhere with the obligatory ‘noball games’ and the gradual reduction in playing spaces.

Every year in Cannes – another festival takes place away from the glare
and sparkle of paparazzi which accompanies the Festival du Cinema.
MIPIM is where UK council executives are serenaded over a tsunami of
alcohol by private developers eyeing plots of ripe land. Executives are
bribed/encouraged through cash incentives to give fast-track passage
over local regulations and community push-back. Some estates have
been sold to private developers (New Era) who hiked up rents and were
embroiled in a legal dispute with their own tenants. Take a walk through
London and you will encounter housing developments hawking over
priced flats which many locals cannot afford. Private sector money and
public sector yardage has fused in the rampant march towards profit per
square meter. The result is that many residents and local businesses
have been priced out and pushed towards the margins or extinction.
The idea of this film was to show the contrast between private greed and communal development through the prism of sports. How an activity, like playing football can generate an amount of social cohesion far greater than the sum of its parts. Football has helped many children from complex socio-economic circumstances navigate a difficult adolescence and has often provided a safe haven. A place to learn life lessons (discipline, teamwork, selflessness, pride, raise self-esteem) that last alifetime. Memories, relationships and an ideology that can spill into other arenas of life. Children learn from coaches whose job description regularly morphs into role models, surrogate fathers, social workers and guardians. Coaches also learn many lessons from children, it’s asymbiotic relationship.
This film is a lesson of how pain and trauma can be transformed through football into a process of social renewal and community development.