The Premier League "More than a game" campaign is showcasing how its wide-ranging investment into all levels of football enables people connected to clubs to have a positive impact on their local communities.
Here are three people who have benefited from the Premier League’s commitment to investing £1.6billion to the wider game and communities in the three years between 2022 and 2025.
Hus Mohammed
Hus first attended a Premier League Kicks session as a nine-year-old in a part of south London where the temptation for youngsters to travel down the wrong path was common.
"There were a lot of gangs and violence so being at PL Kicks gave a sense of community because you got to know a lot of people from the area," Hus says. "There were rules and how they wanted us to behave at the sessions meant that we had to behave outside as well. We took it upon ourselves to make our community a better place and PL Kicks gave us the power to do that."
PL Kicks gave Hus the opportunity to take coaching badges and now, 16 years later, he is a youth and community manager at Fulham FC Foundation at Kicks sessions in the same venue he attended as youngster.
"It's a big part of my life," he says. "The friends I have now, I met at PL Kicks. If it wasn't for Kicks, I don't know what I'd be doing to be honest. My life would have taken a different direction. It wouldn't be as fun! It's special because you realise the things that the young people are going through, you went through as well. You can relate to them."
PL Kicks began in 2006 and has engaged more than 520,000 people as a consistent source of guidance, support and football activity. Some of the 4,900 venues where PL Kicks sessions take place are in some of the most disadvantaged areas of England and Wales.
"Just there being a consistent football session that's free for young people to attend gives them a sense of belonging, a sense of safety in that area," Hus says. "It might be the only consistent thing they've got.”
Hus’s journey from PL Kicks participant to working for clubs on Kicks projects is a common one. Some 20 per cent of the workforce at sessions are former participants.
"I can make the change that I wanted as a young person to the people on the programme now," he says.
Lola
For almost half of Lola’s life, she has benefited from Premier League assistance in developing her love for football. This support via the Bristol City Robins Foundation also helped her through the pandemic, encouraged her to take up volunteering and opened up the possibility of playing in America.
"I've not always liked football," Lola says. "I grew up playing a lot of sports, but I didn't play football until I was around 10.”
That was thanks to Premier League Primary Stars sessions in Lola’s school delivered by the Robins Foundation. PL Primary Stars uses the appeal of football to inspire children in more than 19,000 primary schools across England and Wales to be active and develop essential skills.
“PL Primary Stars was a great opportunity,” she says. “Every lunchtime the coaches would come and put us into matches. It was a great environment and a lot of fun."
When Lola left primary school, the Premier League and Robins Foundation were still there to channel her newfound love of the game, through PL Kicks. The Robins Foundation Kicks coaches also helped her when the pandemic struck and chance to play football was put on hold.
During lockdown coaches would call to check up on Lola, offering her a safe space and time for a chat when things got too much.
"It was disheartening when I thought I couldn't do it any more," she says. "That help I had was so important. I think I would have still been at my worst now if I didn't have that support.”
Lola has become one of 21,000 volunteers who have helped at PL Kicks sessions, 93 per cent of whom are former participants. Her commitment to others is such that she won a Robins Foundation award.
"After lockdown, because I was isolated for so long, I was a bit lost,” she says. “When I started volunteering, it brought me back to where I used to be and reminded me how to have fun and enjoy life."
Now working on her FA Level 2 coaching badge, when she's completed her education with the Robins Foundation, Lola is hoping to gain a football scholarship at an American university.
Dave Tromans
For more than 60 years, Dave "Snip" Tromans has been with non-league club Staveley Miners Welfare, going from player, to manager, to now kitman and hospitality manager.
“I live, eat and sleep Staveley,” he says. “They always say if you cut me open it’ll be blue and white.”
Staveley Miners have been a grassroots club for 140 years, now playing at level 10 of the English football pyramid.
They are one of over 1,000 lower-league and women’s clubs to have benefited from grants to improve their ground and facilities through the Premier League Stadium Fund, which has invested £192.7million since 2000.
With the help of over £600,000 funding from the Premier League and the Football Foundation, Staveley have also been able to upgrade their facilities with a new 3G pitch, floodlights and car parking.
This has meant the pitch at Staveley, Derbyshire, can now be used more than ever before, by over 500 local youngsters weekly, from Under-7s up to Under-18s, while the club's academy, senior side and two women's teams have also benefited.
Staveley are one of 1,083 clubs across 114 leagues who have received more than 5,630 grants from the Premier League.
"At the end of the day, grassroots football starts like this," Tromans says as he looks across the 3G pitch.
"These youngsters here running around at six years old, and you’ve got kids playing on it [the pitch] every day. It’s in use every day, seven days a week."
