From Monday's Daily Express:
LAST week Fabio Capello was dubbed the 'saviour' of our national game as he took charge of England for the first time. But with fans in open revolt over inflated ticket prices and unpopular plans to hold Premier League matches abroad, sorting out Frank Lampard and co is the least of the FA's problems.
JULIA WHITE meets Steve Waggott, a man you probably won't have heard of, who slowly - but surely - is changing the face of English football.
Premier League matches in Dubai, Beijing and Idaho - but no England team at Euro 2008. Professional teams with no English players. Ticket prices way beyond the ordinary fan - while some stars take home more than £100,000-a-week...before bonuses.
There's no doubt about it, English football is in desperate need of saving.
But it’s not the job for new manager Fabio Capello, who looked bewildered as England struggled to beat Switzerland at Wembley last week.
The Italian may yet be able to rescue the current crop of players from the depths of disappointment and despair.
If you lose touch with grassroots and community are you a football club or are you a business?
Steve Waggott, Chief Executive of Charlton Athletic Community Trust
But the crisis needs more than just a temporary band-aid over the wound. Football needs to re-connect with its support base, build for the future and use its popularity to help - not the rich get richer - but local communities who genuinely need the money the sport can generate.
He might look Italian but Steve Waggott, the Chief Executive of Charlton Athletic's Community Trust, is more Newcastle than Naples. And the bubbly Englishman is working his socks off to save the beautiful game.
From his hub at the Championship club, Steve is moving mountains to ensure that football throughout the world - not just Charlton - changes for the better.
We meet at The Valley - which could again be a Premier League ground by April - on a bright but freezing winter's morning. Something is crackling through the cold air. It's the sound of enthusiasm.
“Football came out of grassroots and community," Steve begins, his face contorted with pure passion for the game he loves. "If you lose touch with grassroots and community are you a real football club or are you a business?
“These days Premiership players who are on £100,000 a-week are becoming a business in their own right. Where’s their social responsibility?”
Fans can now get a return bus to Charlton for just £5 from anywhere in Southern England
Social responsibility. Not something you hear in Premier League meetings about lucrative away days in Bangkok. But this is the mantra that has guided Steve since he took on the position of Chief Executive four years ago.
He is a man ahead of his time - and Charlton are a club willing to listen.
From the chairman Richard Murray down to the groundsmen, a family atmosphere runs like blood around The Valley.
Instead of Charlton’s first-team players paying a one-off visit to a hospital at Christmas, the squad make regular appearances at local community events.
Each member of Alan Pardew’s rapidly-improving team is part of a community-work rota and players do everything from attending awards ceremonies to appearing at school assemblies.
“We get the players to go into schools and read a class the first chapter of a book,” says Steve.
“They tell the kids they’ll come back and visit when they’ve read the rest of the book themselves.
“Having players like Luke Varney coming along to their schools is a real incentive to get kids reading.”
The idea behind the club’s 'social action' policy is to use the power of football to improve the whole community.
“Football nowadays is like a church, a new religion,” Steve adds. “You can get unbelievable messages across by getting people’s attention through the game.”
Not only do the players go out into the community, local people are encouraged to come to the club and use its educational and social facilities.
Instead of the 27,000-seater Valley stadium lying empty for the 335 non-match days a year, it is home to a crèche, a learning centre, a higher education college, a fitness centre and even dance studios.
“The stadium is like an envelope which closes on the 30 to 35 match-days to concentrate on the game but which turns outwards at all other times,” he explains.
Nearly 600,000 members of the community of all ages, who would otherwise have no place (or perhaps even desire) to learn or develop, are welcomed into the ground’s facilities for free.
Charlton is the only football club in the world to have a full-time leisure college which is home to 4,000 students.
The city-learning centre, equipped with state-of-the-art computers and electronic white boards, teaches local people from age four up to age 80 a range of life skills.
Kids who have been absent from school for up to two years come to the Valley because they are attracted by the Charlton brand.
Once they’re inside the walls of the stadium, they’re given life skills and introduced to employment prospects.
They’re also exposed to positive messages about how to be a good citizen - like anti-smoking and anti-racism talks.
The aim is to directly improve the local south London area - lower crime, getting kids back into school and unemployment down.
“We’re turning into the new youth service provider,” Steve continues. “It’s far better they’re here than having them kicking down the nearest bus shelter.
“It’s all about improving people’s life chances through football.”
The impact Steve’s 250-strong team have had on the surrounding community hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Government. Within three and a half years the Trust had reached their five-year goal and Prime Minister Tony Blair praised Charlton for doing so much for local people.
Gordon Brown said: “They have clearly grasped that clubs play a vital role and need to be at the heart of their local communities. The vision here shows that the club has clear direction and I’ve never seen such far-reaching activities.”
The template is being duplicated at sports clubs across the world and Steve has just returned from Australia where similar ideas are being developed.
The club has soccer schools in China, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Finland and South Africa.
“Whatever the needs of the area, they can be addressed through the same model.
“By putting a ball down and two goalposts we’ve got their attention and then we can start educating them.”
It’s a simple idea that starts and ends with football.
And what all this relates back to is the development of Charlton Athletic.
In return for opening the club’s doors, Charlton breeds a healthier surrounding community and a new set of fans.
The more people who are exposed to the club through using the facilities, the more likely they are to become supporters and, as Steve says, “buy a bobble hat from the store”.
Schemes like subsidised transport to the Valley on match days (£5 return door-to-door from anywhere in the south of England) have brought 4,000 extra fans to the stadium.
It’s vital to the Trust that Pardew’s team are well supported on match days by a full stadium. There are also plans to expand the stadium to 40,000 seats.
Ticket prices are kept low so local people can afford to come to matches and experience live football.
Steve adds: "It stops people watching on TV from their armchair and gets them watching live matches.
“Football has a responsibility to make the next generation of fans.”
A poignant message.
But is anyone at Soho Square listening?
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Comments
I'd love the Palace fans on here earlier this week to read about real achievements like this.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I know you have links with the club AB but come on - give credit where its due.
We have an excellent community scheme and the work of the trust is admirable. I have the highest respect for people like Jason Morgan and Matt Parish,who have spent many years building the community activity up. They deserve huge credit, as do the board of directors, Peter Varney and people like Ben Tegg, for setting the ethos of the club. This is a long-term commitment. It did not start four years ago.
However, it is laughable to state that 600,000 people come into the ground to use its facilities free or that there are 4,000 students of London Leisure College attending The Valley on a full-time basis. Anyone who frequents The Valley on a non-matchday or even knows the size of the accommodation would know that these numbers are impossible. Very little trust activity is delivered at The Valley. It is almost entirely out-reach work. Quite rightly.
The level of co-operation of the playing side with community activity of any kind has been a problem for as long as I have been involved with the club. I don't believe it is is any worse than elsewhere, but the idea that we are a role model for other clubs in this is absolutely at odds with experience.
The community trust and Steve Waggott have nothing to do with the gym, Valley Express or the club's pricing policies and no input to them. The credit for Valley Express and pricing belongs to the board of directors - and indeed to the Target 40,000 committee members who give their time freely and extensively to advise them.
Quite conceivably all these aspects are misunderstandings by the reporter. My point is not that we aren't an outstanding example of a community club - we are - but that the article is so inaccurate that it forms no proper basis for a judgement either way.
AB, thanks for clearing up some of the inaccuracies of the report. It was however, referred to on the club web-site and linked to the article without any editorial comment correcting these inaccuracies. Therefore those of us who were impressed by the claims made, may have been entitled to draw the conclusion that the article was materially correct?
Thank you BFR and AB for your comments.
49 full time members of staff is a fantastic number and far greater than I imagined.