I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Michael Carson ?
Drove into a tree
Who was the player who made it to Prem out of interest ?
Yes, that's him, was known as Kit Carson. There were a number of high profile players that he brought through. The one I played with was Tim Sherwood.
Impressed - you must have been a talented footballer ?
I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Attended PGL with assume the same man at Essex University - friend who was a goalkeeper then went to one of his goalkeeping courses (with Ray Clemence as the celebrity endorsement). No awareness of anything happening but not sure what I would have done had I been in a difficult situation - I like to think I'd have had the ability to fend off but you never know - there but for the grace of god and all that..
Yes it was PGL. Before that when my brother went I think it was called C&G and he ran it with a young coach who ended up managing in the Leagues, still does I think, was even rumoured to be our manager at one point. He was a great guy, can't imagine he had a clue what was going on.
Nothing bad happened to me and it has nothing to do with football, but our little town had an open air swimming pool run by volunteers. You paid a £5 for a summer pass and then had free entrance for the entire summer, the volunteers also did swimming lessons. I spent every summer there for years with my mates.
One of the male volunteers liked cleaning the boys toilets during opening times and my friends and I would never go in there, a mix of a strange feeling and stage fright. Eventually when I was about 16 he attacked a boy about 3 years younger than me.
The bloke is actually living locally again (after a while behind bars) and I see him about every so often, everyone refers to him as Paedo Pete. I have no idea who his victim was but hope he and his family moved away before his he got back to the area.
Nothing bad happened to me and it has nothing to do with football, but our little town had an open air swimming pool run by volunteers. You paid a £5 for a summer pass and then had free entrance for the entire summer, the volunteers also did swimming lessons. I spent every summer there for years with my mates.
One of the male volunteers liked cleaning the boys toilets during opening times and my friends and I would never go in there, a mix of a strange feeling and stage fright. Eventually when I was about 16 he attacked a boy about 3 years younger than me.
The bloke is actually living locally again (after a while behind bars) and I see him about every so often, everyone refers to him as Paedo Pete. I have no idea who his victim was but hope he and his family moved away before his he got back to the area.
Dreadful - and has the front to live in the same town - they know no shame - scum
Nothing bad happened to me and it has nothing to do with football, but our little town had an open air swimming pool run by volunteers. You paid a £5 for a summer pass and then had free entrance for the entire summer, the volunteers also did swimming lessons. I spent every summer there for years with my mates.
One of the male volunteers liked cleaning the boys toilets during opening times and my friends and I would never go in there, a mix of a strange feeling and stage fright. Eventually when I was about 16 he attacked a boy about 3 years younger than me.
The bloke is actually living locally again (after a while behind bars) and I see him about every so often, everyone refers to him as Paedo Pete. I have no idea who his victim was but hope he and his family moved away before his he got back to the area.
Dreadful - and has the front to live in the same town - they know no shame - scum
Exactly. I think he was a single offender and lacked the finesse of those in the news of late. But first time I saw him again and I was about 30 it freaked me out a bit.
How has Dario Gradi got away with it? Find it pretty much impossible to believe he didn't know what was going on.
"During the investigation Gradi explained that he did not consider a person putting their hands down another’s trousers to be an assault."
Then we hear he's been banned from football for the past 5 years for 'safeguarding issues'. FA head of legal: “Where someone is removed from football for safeguarding reasons, that will be because there has been an assessment that the particular individual could potentially pose a risk of harm to children. That’s as far as we can go."
I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Attended PGL with assume the same man at Essex University - friend who was a goalkeeper then went to one of his goalkeeping courses (with Ray Clemence as the celebrity endorsement). No awareness of anything happening but not sure what I would have done had I been in a difficult situation - I like to think I'd have had the ability to fend off but you never know - there but for the grace of god and all that..
When it happened to me on the week coaching course I was on, Bob Higgins simply asked me a few times to take my towel off, in particular saying that’s what the pro footballers did - I just kept saying no
But you are right - I would have been in trouble if he had been more aggressive / forced himself on me
There but for the grace as you say.....
Im going to watch part 2 of that programme this evening, it’s not going to be nice, but I’m gonna do it anyway
The whole series is on IPlayer - watched Part2 which gave an insight into how they operate. Football needs to pay for proper safeguarding - nobody should suffer the way the victims and their families did.
There are many procedures and rules in place now to try and prevent anything happening. There is much more awareness now.
I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Attended PGL with assume the same man at Essex University - friend who was a goalkeeper then went to one of his goalkeeping courses (with Ray Clemence as the celebrity endorsement). No awareness of anything happening but not sure what I would have done had I been in a difficult situation - I like to think I'd have had the ability to fend off but you never know - there but for the grace of god and all that..
When it happened to me on the week coaching course I was on, Bob Higgins simply asked me a few times to take my towel off, in particular saying that’s what the pro footballers did - I just kept saying no
But you are right - I would have been in trouble if he had been more aggressive / forced himself on me
There but for the grace as you say.....
Im going to watch part 2 of that programme this evening, it’s not going to be nice, but I’m gonna do it anyway
The whole series is on IPlayer - watched Part2 which gave an insight into how they operate. Football needs to pay for proper safeguarding - nobody should suffer the way the victims and their families did.
There are many procedures and rules in place now to try and prevent anything happening. There is much more awareness now.
There are procedures in place but they need to be properly funded and that still remains an issue.
the kids are obviously victims of these complete wrong uns but i'm amazed at how this could have gone on so much without it being stopped - i would have made sure everybody knew about it if anybody ever tried anything like that with me let alone actually letting it happen repeatedly - i just can't understand how these kids put up with it - no way would wanting to become a footballer have been worth that - everybody's different of course but i can't get my head round it
I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Attended PGL with assume the same man at Essex University - friend who was a goalkeeper then went to one of his goalkeeping courses (with Ray Clemence as the celebrity endorsement). No awareness of anything happening but not sure what I would have done had I been in a difficult situation - I like to think I'd have had the ability to fend off but you never know - there but for the grace of god and all that..
When it happened to me on the week coaching course I was on, Bob Higgins simply asked me a few times to take my towel off, in particular saying that’s what the pro footballers did - I just kept saying no
But you are right - I would have been in trouble if he had been more aggressive / forced himself on me
There but for the grace as you say.....
Im going to watch part 2 of that programme this evening, it’s not going to be nice, but I’m gonna do it anyway
The whole series is on IPlayer - watched Part2 which gave an insight into how they operate. Football needs to pay for proper safeguarding - nobody should suffer the way the victims and their families did.
There are many procedures and rules in place now to try and prevent anything happening. There is much more awareness now.
They will always find a way through the system - that’s the sad part of it
I have just watched the 2nd episode of the BBC series on this - the damage they do to people, which then transfers into their adult lives, is sickening
One of those abused by Bob Higgins (who I encountered) played for England schoolboys - a lad called Billy Seymour - he subsequently had 3 jail terms in adult life, and spent his adult life in turmoil - died too young in a car accident - a life destroyed by a child abuser
Added to that the collateral damage to his parents, family and friends
The death penalty is deserved for these scumbags of people
I watched it last and had tears in my eyes when Paul Stewart broke down, not for himself but for the pain that him coming forward about the abuse he suffered would do to his mum. Heartbreaking. I truly hope he manages to find peace, it would be a tragedy (but understandable) if he can’t put some of his demons to rest.
The sad fact is wherever there are children there will always be these sort of deviant predators regardless of what safeguards we put in place.
the kids are obviously victims of these complete wrong uns but i'm amazed at how this could have gone on so much without it being stopped - i would have made sure everybody knew about it if anybody ever tried anything like that with me let alone actually letting it happen repeatedly - i just can't understand how these kids put up with it - no way would wanting to become a footballer have been worth that - everybody's different of course but i can't get my head round it
They know who to target and what threats to make - watching the program it showed how they operate and we're looking at it through the eye of an adult.
I played in a team run by one of the accused coaches. He killed himself last year on the day of his trial. I was approached by a national newspaper about 5 years ago out of the blue who told me about the allegations against him and if I had been affected or seen anything, I hadn't. My brother who was 4 years older than me also played for the older team and didn't witness anything. It was a representative team put together from kids attending residential coaching courses run by a very large adventure holiday company, mostly in East Anglia. We would travel to tournaments in England and abroad and they had teams across age groups generally a high standard with most boys attached to clubs or hoping to be. I went to a tournament in Denmark with this coach and the team and he was the only adult with us, we were about 13 or 14.
A number of players went on to be pro and one player in my team ended up a top Premiership player and manager. The coach even came to my brothers wedding. I think it really freaked my mum and Dad out when they found out. Now looking back I do remember there was always one or two boys whose parents were never around and always came to tournaments with him.
Attended PGL with assume the same man at Essex University - friend who was a goalkeeper then went to one of his goalkeeping courses (with Ray Clemence as the celebrity endorsement). No awareness of anything happening but not sure what I would have done had I been in a difficult situation - I like to think I'd have had the ability to fend off but you never know - there but for the grace of god and all that..
When it happened to me on the week coaching course I was on, Bob Higgins simply asked me a few times to take my towel off, in particular saying that’s what the pro footballers did - I just kept saying no
But you are right - I would have been in trouble if he had been more aggressive / forced himself on me
There but for the grace as you say.....
Im going to watch part 2 of that programme this evening, it’s not going to be nice, but I’m gonna do it anyway
The whole series is on IPlayer - watched Part2 which gave an insight into how they operate. Football needs to pay for proper safeguarding - nobody should suffer the way the victims and their families did.
There are many procedures and rules in place now to try and prevent anything happening. There is much more awareness now.
They will always find a way through the system - that’s the sad part of it
I have just watched the 2nd episode of the BBC series on this - the damage they do to people, which then transfers into their adult lives, is sickening
One of those abused by Bob Higgins (who I encountered) played for England schoolboys - a lad called Billy Seymour - he subsequently had 3 jail terms in adult life, and spent his adult life in turmoil - died too young in a car accident - a life destroyed by a child abuser
Added to that the collateral damage to his parents, family and friends
The death penalty is deserved for these scumbags of people
I hadn't really thought about the collateral damage until I watched the program - a lot of the families went through hell. I felt so sorry for the mother of Billy Seymour.
As I suspected a photo of Gary Speed was shown as players developed by Barry Bennell. I mentioned this some time back, but it was obviously being kept quiet.
The only thing that surprises me is that we are actually surprised this goes on - when you think about it football is absolutely perfect for the pedophiles to operate in, it could hardly be better.
What does the pedophile want? Access to as many kids as possible.
What else? Control over those kids.
Football coaching provides both in abundance - as do other things that we shall get to shortly.
Every kid in the country wants to be a footballer so access is no problem at all and once you're coaching the kid then you are in authority and most of them will do whatever you say.
It's just so f******g obvious.
Following the program you saw the usual right-wing nutters come out and attack the BBC over its handling of Jimmy Savile - they just can't miss a chance to score a point in the never ending culture wars.
The BBC messed up the Jimmy Savile thing badly - although he took in absolutely everyone and was a personal friend of a certain Margaret Thatcher lest we forget that fact.
The far more relevant comparison here is not the BBC at all, it's the Roman Catholic church that has for decades facilitated the widespread sexual abuse of children and protected pedophile priests.
There was an excellent program here in Australia by the public broadcaster called 'Revelation' that exposed the absolute pure evil that the church allowed to happen under its watch - doing nothing to stop it and actively protecting pedophile Priests that were abusing choir boys and school children in their care.
The trailer is below and you may be able to watch the rest of it online somewhere - but it's a heart-breaking watch.
The stories of these Australian kids abused through the 1970s and 1980s are eerily similar to these footballers, the pedophile gets access to them, gains control over them and then commits depraved acts that scar the kid for life.
The only reason the Priests were ever brought to justice was because of outstanding work by a local journalist in Newcastle, NSW who finally got the attention of the NSW Police Force who finally got the ball rolling - but had to push through enormous resistance from the Catholic church and their political allies from both left and right.
You wish to hell there was some kind of solution for this but there really is not, here in QLD everyone that works with kids has to get a 'Blue Card' from the state government that basically means there is no public evidence that you are a danger - but that's really picking off the low hanging fruit.
Sure, the scheme occasionally catches repeat offenders that have recorded convictions but it doesn't stop some filthy bastard that has slipped through the cracks - but it's better than nothing obviously.
I am not sure what it's like in the UK these days but here in Oz it would be very hard for any coach to get up to that sort of thing now because there are usually - even at the lower levels - loads of parents around all the time as well as other coaches etc but as we all know back in the day that wasn't always the case.
The only way to really address the problem - to even the mildest extent - is to not just vet people very carefully (although that's no guarantee of anything) but to also make sure that adults are simply never alone one on one with a child, there must be other children or adults present - but that's easier said than done.
Absolutely horrific stuff and you can only hope that these poor men, now all well into middle age, find some peace and comfort from finally telling their story and that they can live the rest of their lives with some degree of happiness.
I fortunately never experienced anything like this but I do remember a strange comment from a football coach.
I became a Charlton fan in the mid 90s after getting tickets to games through the football training courses the club ran in the school holidays. One session we finished the day playing matches. At the end the coaches talked about the game they were running. I don’t remember the exact words but a summary of one match from a coach went something like “it had everything”, another coach replied with “even sex?” It might have been nothing more than an attempt at humour between adults, but it was an odd thing to say in front of a large group of pre-teenage children.
I didn’t tell my parents if I had done I’m sure my mum would have spoken to one of the coaches - around a similar time she had to deal with another potential more serious incident at my primary school. There was a male teacher who invited my younger sister and her friend to come in to the school on the weekend, something around decorating the walls I think. My mum didn’t like the sound of that and complaining to the school. I believe it was to the head teacher who replied with something along the lines of the teacher has been told before to not do that. My mum of course had to deal with my upset sister thinking her fun was being spoilt for no reason.
I don’t feel either incident has affected me but those memories make me wonder how often those men said similar things and how far it might have gone - hopefully rarely and not very far.
This could be happening in a lot of sports involving children, i.e. sex scandal with coaches in the US gymnastic team, Sharon Davies former coach was jailed for molesting girls etc etc.
Of course you have the scum that commit the crimes, but you also have the FA and clubs that try to bury it or ignore the rumours. I found it interesting the account by Dave Merrington where he heard talk on the bus and went to the club (Southampton) and when questioned about it, Higgins resigned. My thought was, was that it?
I watched it last and had tears in my eyes when Paul Stewart broke down, not for himself but for the pain that him coming forward about the abuse he suffered would do to his mum. Heartbreaking. I truly hope he manages to find peace, it would be a tragedy (but understandable) if he can’t put some of his demons to rest.
The sad fact is wherever there are children there will always be these sort of deviant predators regardless of what safeguards we put in place.
Tears in my eyes too. To see what these these 'men' have done to a person's mental state many years on and that's without even thinking about the act. Makes you feel sick.
Utterly depressing and so very, very sad and avoidable. So many innocent life’s ruined
As I’ve said before If ever a movement like ‘taking the knee’ was needed in football, it was for this pertinent issue that has been systematic through football for years and probably still is now, rather than in support of what might be a noble intention over perceived injustice in the game, but was ultimately triggered by and in support of a career criminal in another country who suffered an excessive and ultimately fatal miscarriage of justice.
If professional football has any credibility it’s participants would be following a similar course of action and taking a similar stance on this horrific issue which is much closer to home and as, if not more, destructive for the child victims.
Utterly depressing and so very, very sad and avoidable. So many innocent life’s ruined
As I’ve said before If ever a movement like ‘taking the knee’ was needed in football, it was for this pertinent issue that has been systematic through football for years and probably still is now, rather than in support of what might be a noble intention over perceived injustice in the game, but was ultimately triggered by and in support of a career criminal in another country who suffered an excessive and ultimately fatal miscarriage of justice.
If professional football has any credibility it’s participants would be following a similar course of action and taking a similar stance on this horrific issue which is much closer to home and as, if not more, destructive for the child victims.
Really not sure why it’s necessary to turn a thread about horrific child abuse into a rant about an objection to the anti racist movement. ‘Perceived injustice’?? Why can’t football utterly condemn both?
What a heart wrenching programme. I applaud them all for standing up and being heard. Really feel for the parents of all the victims. The guilt they feel must be horrendous.
This is a review of the 97 Despatches programme. No wonder nothing happened after the programme with reactions like that. But adding this article because Charlton are mentioned at the end about only one putting in measures.
Couldn’t watch it as I would get both upset & angry. I know very well a couple, good friends, whose lad died a few years ago, part of the TV series, he was abused as a kid at a club and it wrecked his life & so upsetting for his mum and dad, my good friends & such lovely people. These abusers should be put down in my opinion.
I really hope no one on here was affected by him or knows anyone who was affected by him
Heath’s activities at Charlton have been reported on before, including by the BBC. The club under the Belgians is reported by the lawyers to have declined to cooperate. From what I understand they were chiefly interested in avoiding any liability, although I think that probably did end in respect of Heath with the winding up of the old company in 1984.
When you look at the abysmal standard of governance in football clubs in the past it’s hardly surprising they weren’t on top of child protection. However, at the same time, the churches, boarding schools, children’s homes - institutions that were supposedly focused on children’s welfare - were all culpable In abuse. If they weren’t protecting children properly then the chances of football doing so at that time were near zero.
Comments
One of the male volunteers liked cleaning the boys toilets during opening times and my friends and I would never go in there, a mix of a strange feeling and stage fright. Eventually when I was about 16 he attacked a boy about 3 years younger than me.
The bloke is actually living locally again (after a while behind bars) and I see him about every so often, everyone refers to him as Paedo Pete. I have no idea who his victim was but hope he and his family moved away before his he got back to the area.
"During the investigation Gradi explained that he did not consider a person putting their hands down another’s trousers to be an assault."
Then we hear he's been banned from football for the past 5 years for 'safeguarding issues'.
FA head of legal: “Where someone is removed from football for safeguarding reasons, that will be because there has been an assessment that the particular individual could potentially pose a risk of harm to children. That’s as far as we can go."
This bloke should be locked up.
I have just watched the 2nd episode of the BBC series on this - the damage they do to people, which then transfers into their adult lives, is sickening
One of those abused by Bob Higgins (who I encountered) played for England schoolboys - a lad called Billy Seymour - he subsequently had 3 jail terms in adult life, and spent his adult life in turmoil - died too young in a car accident - a life destroyed by a child abuser
Added to that the collateral damage to his parents, family and friends
The death penalty is deserved for these scumbags of people
The sad fact is wherever there are children there will always be these sort of deviant predators regardless of what safeguards we put in place.
I mentioned this some time back, but it was obviously being kept quiet.
Look under his death.
RIP Gary. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Speed
What does the pedophile want? Access to as many kids as possible.
What else? Control over those kids.
Football coaching provides both in abundance - as do other things that we shall get to shortly.
Every kid in the country wants to be a footballer so access is no problem at all and once you're coaching the kid then you are in authority and most of them will do whatever you say.
It's just so f******g obvious.
Following the program you saw the usual right-wing nutters come out and attack the BBC over its handling of Jimmy Savile - they just can't miss a chance to score a point in the never ending culture wars.
The BBC messed up the Jimmy Savile thing badly - although he took in absolutely everyone and was a personal friend of a certain Margaret Thatcher lest we forget that fact.
The far more relevant comparison here is not the BBC at all, it's the Roman Catholic church that has for decades facilitated the widespread sexual abuse of children and protected pedophile priests.
There was an excellent program here in Australia by the public broadcaster called 'Revelation' that exposed the absolute pure evil that the church allowed to happen under its watch - doing nothing to stop it and actively protecting pedophile Priests that were abusing choir boys and school children in their care.
The trailer is below and you may be able to watch the rest of it online somewhere - but it's a heart-breaking watch.
The stories of these Australian kids abused through the 1970s and 1980s are eerily similar to these footballers, the pedophile gets access to them, gains control over them and then commits depraved acts that scar the kid for life.
The only reason the Priests were ever brought to justice was because of outstanding work by a local journalist in Newcastle, NSW who finally got the attention of the NSW Police Force who finally got the ball rolling - but had to push through enormous resistance from the Catholic church and their political allies from both left and right.
You wish to hell there was some kind of solution for this but there really is not, here in QLD everyone that works with kids has to get a 'Blue Card' from the state government that basically means there is no public evidence that you are a danger - but that's really picking off the low hanging fruit.
Sure, the scheme occasionally catches repeat offenders that have recorded convictions but it doesn't stop some filthy bastard that has slipped through the cracks - but it's better than nothing obviously.
I am not sure what it's like in the UK these days but here in Oz it would be very hard for any coach to get up to that sort of thing now because there are usually - even at the lower levels - loads of parents around all the time as well as other coaches etc but as we all know back in the day that wasn't always the case.
The only way to really address the problem - to even the mildest extent - is to not just vet people very carefully (although that's no guarantee of anything) but to also make sure that adults are simply never alone one on one with a child, there must be other children or adults present - but that's easier said than done.
Absolutely horrific stuff and you can only hope that these poor men, now all well into middle age, find some peace and comfort from finally telling their story and that they can live the rest of their lives with some degree of happiness.
I became a Charlton fan in the mid 90s after getting tickets to games through the football training courses the club ran in the school holidays. One session we finished the day playing matches. At the end the coaches talked about the game they were running. I don’t remember the exact words but a summary of one match from a coach went something like “it had everything”, another coach replied with “even sex?” It might have been nothing more than an attempt at humour between adults, but it was an odd thing to say in front of a large group of pre-teenage children.
I didn’t tell my parents if I had done I’m sure my mum would have spoken to one of the coaches - around a similar time she had to deal with another potential more serious incident at my primary school. There was a male teacher who invited my younger sister and her friend to come in to the school on the weekend, something around decorating the walls I think. My mum didn’t like the sound of that and complaining to the school. I believe it was to the head teacher who replied with something along the lines of the teacher has been told before to not do that. My mum of course had to deal with my upset sister thinking her fun was being spoilt for no reason.
I don’t feel either incident has affected me but those memories make me wonder how often those men said similar things and how far it might have gone - hopefully rarely and not very far.
Crewe chairman John Bowler has resigned following the publication of the Sheldon report into historical sexual abuse in football.
The report criticised Crewe for not doing more to prevent the crimes by their former coach Barry Bennell.
The League One club apologised and said they acknowledge "more could have been done to monitor" Bennell.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56521550
I just watched this programme and in Episode 3 a name was mentioned a scout at Chelsea Eddie Heath.
I looked into him a bit and saw after he left Chelsea he joined Charlton
https://www.robsonshaw.uk/blog/were-you-a-victim-of-eddie-heath-former-football-coach.htm
I really hope no one on here was affected by him or knows anyone who was affected by him
As I’ve said before If ever a movement like ‘taking the knee’ was needed in football, it was for this pertinent issue that has been systematic through football for years and probably still is now, rather than in support of what might be a noble intention over perceived injustice in the game, but was ultimately triggered by and in support of a career criminal in another country who suffered an excessive and ultimately fatal miscarriage of justice.
If professional football has any credibility it’s participants would be following a similar course of action and taking a similar stance on this horrific issue which is much closer to home and as, if not more, destructive for the child victims.
When you look at the abysmal standard of governance in football clubs in the past it’s hardly surprising they weren’t on top of child protection. However, at the same time, the churches, boarding schools, children’s homes - institutions that were supposedly focused on children’s welfare - were all culpable In abuse. If they weren’t protecting children properly then the chances of football doing so at that time were near zero.