“Waking up to the text message I’d dreaded at 6am on the morning of Saturday 23rd March 2024 is something will live in my memory for a long time.

We’d known Richards prognosis for many months of course and in the end it was a blessing that he didn’t have to suffer anymore as the cancer had taken hold.

It was still extremely traumatic as I had geared up the media for some time so we could do justice to his status and legacy when the end came

Pressing send to action the press release and alerts to everyone that needed to know outside of close family and friends I then turned my phone off, went for a long walk then disappeared into the pub to break my pledge of sobriety. We were close and I didn’t want to face the tsunami of media interest that was incoming..

I first met Richard and Gloria Taylor at Lambeth town Hall in 2004. It was a networking event for charities and people looking to supportcharities working in the borough to meet and exchange ideas 

I recognised Richard from all the media coverage the tragedy of Damilola had recieved in 2000 and as I’d been a postman some years earlier working the same area the terrible occurrence had happened in I felt a strong connection 

Now I was a fairly successful marketer having been voted UK Marketing society new product category marketer of the year at one stage it was my marketing skills as well as formative years as a youth worker I wanted to put to good use 

Richard was a character and that’s putting it lightly. Over the years we’d have our disagreements but generally as we worked closer amd closer we became like family 

After I had agreed to work pro bono developing assets for the Damilola Taylor Trust I helped with communication strategies initially while his original management team worked on and access to health care and medicine training with King’s college hospital. Damilola had dreamed of being a Doctor and so this was where initially the DTT focused it’s attentions

Then after a bit of turmoil between Richard and his management team in 2007 they parted company and I agreed to step in as an interim CEO 

The first major project i found myself managing with “The peoples march against knife crime” a collaboration between several families who lost their children in 2008 most notably Brooke Kinsella who’d lost her brother Ben that year sadly 

Estimates were that around 20,000 people joined two marches from North & South London that met at Eros picadilly circus before converging on Hyde Park where a peace rally was staged 

It was shortly before the March that Richards battle with prostate cancer had started in fact he had an operation a couple of weeks before setting out from Kennington Park and despite our pleas that he took the tube and met us at Hyde park he demanded to March the whole route alongside over 50 fellow victim families who’d come from around the uk to take part 

Richard always wanted the DTT to focus on mentoring and supporting disadvantaged young people with better life chances.

This is still the work the Damilola Taylor Trust is most focused on and in the last 8 years over 500 young people from South London Boroughs have been mentored with life skills and work ready training 

My work with the DTT very much focused on designing communications programmes that could level up the media headlines London was exposed to due the negative actions of a minority. When we were researching how we could make the biggest difference when I stepped in as CEO this was the area we identified that we wanted to most explore

The Spirit of London awards was staged for the first time in 2009 at the Alexandra Palace with X Factor winner Alexander Burke and BGT runner up Diversity among the supporting acts

We went on to stage it 4 years in succession raising over £750k from private sector sponsors so that over 15,000 young people could recieve free tickets for the shows and an alumni of 120 young people could be developed 

The Indigo O2 was 2010 venue then in 2011 we rocked up at the Royal Albert Hall. 2012 saw a team of under 21 year old event team take on the O2 Arena the biggest indoor venue in the country 

Richard absolutely loved the pomp amd ceremony in way we staged the events to the point they became known as “The community youth Oscar’s” Donning his tux he adored getting on stage to say a few words each year 

Young Londoners were getting a bad rap and our ambition was “Big problems need big solutions. Go large or go home” was our motto 

The 2012 event was the biggest live youth awards show ever staged in the UK 

The alumni development programme revolved around a school roadshow the youngsters had devised themselves the entire process from marketing free to schools to producing and managing done by the alumni themselves 

Graham Norton chat show style was how they described it. The schools were asked to provide couple of small sofas to be set up in front of school assembly then a young presenter would interview 5/6 of the alumni whod speak about their experience on the red carpet at the event amd all important the life choices they made that saw them arrive there. 

Jamal Edwards was one of our most noted alumni speakers in fact legend has it that he did his first ever public speaking gig at a SOLA school roadshow show and was just so humble and shy he had to hide in the boys toilets to escape the attention of lots of girl pupils who were keen to meet him

Jamal was a huge influence on SOLA. We would meet with him and his Sbtv team in planning stages sat on scatter cushions at their little office in Camden. One day his friend who had been sleeping on his sofa in between busking sessions came along. Nice kid called Ed Sheeran!

Richard would attend the school roadshows occasionally and was always literally gobsmacked at how professionally the kids pulled these events together with next to no budget

In early 2013 following one of the school road shows one of our youngest alumni lost his best friend to knife crime and he asked us to gather the alumni together to discuss solutions to the violence epidemic in our poorest communities.

A couple of weeks later over 50 young people from all 4 corners of London were gathered in the Damilola Taylor Trust tiny office in Camberwell south London and a fresh leg of the journey had begun 

The Awards were wrapped in cotton wool and a project called ONE BIG COMMUNITY (1BC) took off powered by the alumni 

In the fullness of time the full story will be told but with Richards blessing i stepped away from the DTT role at this stage and took on a support role helping the 1bc team in their quest to change the narrative around the violence impacting their communities 

By 2015 we had staged some of the most authentic youth led events ever staged in London and the big driver was trauma and the stories of young people, families and communities living with its impact day in day out. The reality underpinning the youth violence label which was becoming a toxic narrative all on its own doing more harm than good in the eyes of the young people 

At this stage we found ourselves talking to a group of MP’s including Deptford Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft – Vicky had lost a number of her young constituents in her first year of becoming an MP and was particularly motivated to look at solutions 

It was determined that our young people would meet with a handful of Labour party opposition MP’s for a briefing session before the MP’s went into the commons and debated youth violence for the first time in history 

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/gary-trowsdale/the-violence-debate_b_9415380.html

I kept Richard up to speed with all events of course and when I got the call to help set up an all party commission into root causes Youth violence off the back of the debate it’s fair to say he was pleased as punch 

Everything I did I did under the auspices of the DTT and the journey was ongoing in my eyes from the first time Richard and I had discussed the root causal factors in the tragedy of his son which were the poverty & inequalities in the Peckham area the family had moved into 

The all party parliamentary commission followed the evidence from Scotland where the scottish VRU had decreased knife crime incidents by 60% between 2006 and 2016 and the extremely driven team we assembled worked diligently to guarantee high level impact. I had built a team outside Parliament of top professionals and academics all prepared to work pro bono in order to be involved in a parliamentary commission like no other. 

The team visited Scotland and took the learnings back into parliament and we formed a project plan that would see the countries foremost public health experts give evidence in front of our Commissioner MP’s. Myself and Richard would meet once a fortnight so I could update him on what we were getting up to and progress being made 

These meetings would usually coincide with him coming into town for hospital appointments as his long battle to tackle his prostate issue was heating up 

The all party commission delivered our interim report in the spring of 2018 with a heavily attended launch event in the house of commons. As befitted my marketing and comms background i had brought the London evening standard in as a media campaign partner and so it came to pass that on the day of the interim launch with its top line recommendation that the rest of the UK followed Scotland in adopting public health strategies and the VRU model the front page of the Paper carried the headline “Violent London A New Way Forward”

A few weeks later the Mayor of London would declare that London was to launch its own VRU then at the Tory party conference the then home secretary announced that the Government was setting up a home office unit to start treating violence as a disease based on the successful Scottish model 

To commemorate this success I arranged for the founders of the Scottish VRU John Carnochan and Karyn Mcklusky along with current Director Niven Rennie to join forces with the DTT for an 18th anniversary lecture which Vicky Foxcroft the commission chair and Richard himself would speak at.

Unbeknown to many in the audience that night they were witnessing the birth of the Hope Collective. 

As the academics and our secretariat UK Youth did the drafting and the numbers for the final report i busied myself preparing for the forthcoming 20th anniversary in 2020 and how to maximise its impact positively 

We set out a plan to stage events based on young people’s hopes for the future right across the UK. Dami had written a short essay about his hope for the world shortly before the tragedy and this was the inspiration 

We announced our plans on the night of the 19th anniversary with a whole range of partners in the Ritzy cinema Brixton. Among those geared to support were the Scottish and new London VRU 

Little did we realise of course that creeping up on the horizon was a new super bug called Covid! 

Having virtually 18 months wiped out where engaging young people physically was impossible was of course a terrible blow but we used the time progressively by staging online planning meetings which were attended by an eclectic mix of organisations and individuals including the Professional Footballers association whose Chair was Gordon Taylor

Gordon’s first meeting on line with Richard was hilarious when Richard told him they must be brothers but definitely from another mother!

Most relevantly we had many of the emerging VRU set ups joining our calls from across the UK

I went to meet the nstional citizens service (NCS) where they agreed to second their top event planners to the newly formed Hope Collective and we set out a plan to create a youth empowerment event we called a Hope Hack 

Our founder partners such as UK Youth, OnSide Zones and Rio Ferdinand Foundation also pitched in and by the time we staged the first Hope Hack in June 2021 in partnership with the London VRU we were building huge momentum with the legacy campaign 

We had formed a youth management group made up of young people from all over the UK including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They called our pilot project “Changing the conversation” because as they pointed out eloquently at the online launch “We are tired of being blamed for social ills manifesting out of poverty & inequalities it’s time to talk about real solutions to the adult establishment terrain we are forced to navigate”

Click to access Hope-Collective-Changing-The-Conversation.pdf

Last week we staged our 38th Hope Hack across the UK when the Lancashire VRU and our team descended on Chorley 

When we pitch up at Forest Bank prison in May with the Manchester VRU team, we will have engaged almost 4,000 young people in the conversation about what a fairer society could look like and we are joining forces with leading economic think tank National Institute of economic & Social research (INEAS) to put all the data and insights to best use possible in a joint project looking at the benefits to society of levelling up our poorest communities 

As we herald the first anniversary of Ruchards death I think he would be proud of what is now his legacy as much as Damilolas. He said on visiting the stairwell in Peckham where Damilola had died that he was deeply shocked at the level of poverty he found all around him in the area

Much has changed and much hasn’t. Many areas of London and the rest of the UK have seen huge investment in gentrification but extremely deep pockets of poverty exist in the shadow of the gentrified areas while inequalities have sadly sky rocketed

There in a nutshell is the biggest causal factor underpinning the escalated nature of crime and violence in London 

When Damilola died it was front page news all over the world. London had very recently elected a Mayor and policing powers were devolved to City Hall. In the last 25 years the stats and data around violence impacting young lives are inescapable 

The Damilola Taylor Trust has done more to try and influence authentic change than many may have realised and thats why we are now bringing the legacy story to light to honour Richards memory. His legacy continues to fight for change!

So what now for the immediate future?

Well to begin with to help shape the Damilola Taylor Trust with a 5 year plan towards 2030 when Damilola would have been 40 years old my great friend and colleague on the all party parliamentary commission Dr Leroy Logan MBE has joined the trustee board and is chairing the 25th anniversary planning committee 

Richards last wishes and demands of us were that the DTT should use the historic milestone to try and build a bridge of trust between the police and young people and this is what we intend to do

The Hope Collective are working with the 23 strong VRU network across the UK to create a 10 day “Festival of hope” from the 27th November (anniversary of tragedy) to 7th December (Damilolas heavenly birthday) and we are creating an event tool kit to share across entire UK youth sector where local events can be created that encourage participation between police and young people. The National police cadets association will be a support partner 

On the 7th December Southwark council are working with the DTT on a commemorative area in Peckham square to be unveiled and then on December 8th the long awaited return of The Spirit of london awards night 

Richard was a huge presence and it was my privilege to share almost 20 years working with him. In our last conversation he asked me what my biggest regret was and I told him truthfully it was that in order to push forward with seeking solutions to the violence we had needed to moth ball the awards in 2013 

Bring them back, he said, London needs their light more than ever 

I was lucky enough to get to work with the late, great Peter Osgood for a period in the mid 90’s and also get to call him my friend, it was an amazing experience given the way I had idolised him from the terraces as a kid. He was out and out Mr Chelsea. The number nine. King of the Kings road. He also hung around with Raquel Welch for a period and for an impressionable young man back then that was something else altogether!

I with worked Ossie on a number of projects and he introducing me to Geoff Hurst and Matthew Harding. They say you should never actually get to meet your idols as they never match up to your expectations of them but Os did this and more! Matthew was a phenomenon but my relationship with him is for another day. Such a damned shame he was lost to us so young, he would have been the greatest club owner and patron Chelsea football club could ever have had!

I first met Paul around 6 years ago when bumped into him at the Bridge on a match day. We got talking briefly about his charity and his passion for supporting vulnerable young people. I was with the CEO of the Rio Ferdinand Foundation who just happens to be a Chelsea season ticket holder and we arranged to meet Paul in the following weeks to see what we could do to help him

Fast forward 6 years and I was with him when he met with the Chicago Cubs owner last week after he had tweeted his dissatisfaction with racist comments attributed to relatives of the owner and been contacted by Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck at the request of Tom Ricketts who wanted to meet him.

I am not going to say too much about what went on in that meeting beyond what we have already said about it. Paul gave the guy a torrid grilling over the remarks and made it clear that he backed the supporters who held the same values as him which of course was hugely important to him given his own background and journey with the club. Paul also asked Bruce Buck to arrange meetings with all the prospective new owners so that he could ask them the same questions about their anti racism, diversity and inclusion policies.

He was crystal clear that he would not be backing anybody in a personal capacity and it was in his role as the clubs anti racism ambassador that he agreed to take the meeting. He also requested that he was accompanied by myself and the Chair of his Foundation. Paul did say that he thought Tom Ricketts had been as apologetic as he could have been for his families misdemeanours

From a personal perspective as a fan of 60 odd years of course I was interested to hear what the guy had to say about the overall structure and ambition of his consortiums bid but it was Paul leading the meeting and he was adamant that he wanted to show parity to all those bidding and respect the process.

This is such an important issue for Roman Abromovich to try and get right as best he can under the restraints and restrictions placed on him by the Government sanction and given he had met with Tom Ricketts previously when the only thing that stopped him selling the club then was the asking price it appeared to me that this was likely to be Romans preferred option and given they had now come back to the table with an investor worth £ 20 Billion personally. Seems logical given they also had expertise in stadium rebuild within a built up residential metropolis and they had previously done due diligence on the plans Roman had invested in for the Bridge. Personal thoughts and insights of course!

Absolutely zero question in my mind that Rickett family members had been guilty of abhorrent comments and that there were also questions raised from Chicago Cub fans about their running of the Cubs. Did this mean that Tom Ricketts should be disqualified from the bidding process though?

The morality of the Chelsea social media follower base is admirable but given the rise of racism and hate crime re-emerging in football stadiums since 2016 and the dark arts of the vote leave campaign I am not sure that the British establishment currently has the moral high ground to be exercising judgement on the matter quite frankly!

Reports of racist abuse rose by 43% last season, Kick It Out figures show – BBC Sport

Anyway, lets get back to Canners and the fantastic work he does campaigning against racism and hate crime and fighting for the rights of the most vulnerable in society. He is quite frankly, Chelsea Football clubs greatest ambassador by a country mile in this respect and has never had the support from the Club his work and status deserves in my opinion.

I have been with him now many times when he has visited schools and given his talk and it makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck just thinking about the impact I have witnessed. His style is raw and totally authentic and I would be surprised if many of the young kids who put their hands up and declare themselves Arsenal, Spurs or Manchester United fans at the start of the presentation will not be changing their allegiance to Chelsea by the time Canners has finished his talk. For anyone who was around in the early 80’s that remember the hell he was put through by the National Front members among the Chelsea fan base, you will find this as remarkable as I do and understand what I mean when I say he has never been as looked after in return by the club as he could have been

When we got the call that the Club were planning to name a corporate suite after him he was laying in a hospital bed and his Sister June had called me a few days earlier in absolute pieces as she had been told it was likely he would not pull through. We are delighted for him more so of course that he once again rose up resilient and lived to fight another day but also that the Canoville suite is now the biggest named corporate area in the stadium. Even more poignant that Paul requested that the area also celebrated all the great black players that had followed after him. As humble as he is resilient!

It was a far cry from the first time I had joined Canners for a meeting with Chairman Bruce Buck to discuss his Foundation. The meeting had started with Simon Taylor the MD of the clubs own Foundation shuffling papers in front of us while explaining to Bruce Buck that the Paul Canoville Foundation hadn’t filed its accounts with the charity commission on time. Incredible!! Rude beyond any comprehension you might have of the word rude!! Think what Paul had been through with the club previously. Think about the fact we were in a room just above the David Speedie entrance FFS!!!!!

The Chelsea Foundation rarely communicates with Paul and even when they run anti racism projects they tend not to even let him know anything is going on. Facts.

I want to make something clear, Paul thinks the World of Chairman Bruce Buck and feels that it was down to him and Roman directly that the naming of the suite happened.

Bruce seems to be getting a lot of flack from the media now due to his trying to do right by Paul by treating his anti racism ambassador role with the club with respect in organising the meeting. Talking about the dark arts of the vote leave campaign I have no doubt that similar media spin tactics are now in play with the various bidding consortiums.

While Paul has asked to meet all of them so he can listen to all their ambition and policy ideas around tackling black racism, diversity and inclusion, there has been no firm interest as yet. Indeed, we have heard that one bid in particular has said they have no interest in meeting as this is not an area they want to focus on at this time. fair enough I guess!!

One final point I would like to finish on is that of the ludicrous abuse Paul received on social media last week. There are a lot of ludicrous people on Twitter these are not real Chelsea fans. The real fans will mob him in the street for selfies at todays home game as he turns up for his shift as a match day host in the corporate suites as they always do. Paul does not get any support from the club for his anti racism work in schools but they do pay him along with several other ex players to attend home matches as a match day ambassador

I hope that Paul is treated with the respect his authentic standing with Chelsea football club deserves by whoever the new owner eventually is. That is the bottom line here

FOOTNOTE:

The Paul Canoville Foundation generates funding to cover cost of Pauls school talks by designing and selling merchandise. If you would like to support Pauls work and are a Chelsea supporter. Here is the link

Chelsea – Love Football Hate Racism (lfhr.org.uk)

#LoveChelseaHateRacism

#ImagineNotBeingChelsea

Working on the construction of the Hope Collective has been challenging but immensely satisfying. You often hear people talk about the importance of relationships and relationships have been absolutely key to the projects development. So many wonderful people all pulling together in same direction. So many awesome professionals prepared to commit and contribute over and above their already pressured day jobs. The Hope Collective is truly a partnership cohort with purpose!

We created the Hope Hacks not just by listening to young people and what they wanted from an evaluation programme like this but by also putting them front and centre of the development process.

This success of the 2021 HOPE HACK TOUR pilot across London, Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff and Manchester (Oldham) is captured in the 2021 summary report CHANGING THE CONVERSATION https://www.hopecollectiveuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Hope-Collective-Changing-The-Conversation.pdf

You can also watch the report launch event and see some of the projects young stars from across the UK explaining the process and most importantly, why the conversation needed to change!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JYF-Uuem-VimIoHr8xyAcuEhtey7c2v4/view?usp=sharing

Now we have embarked on the next phase of the project. Having changed the conversation from knife crime, gangs and drugs and the many other symptoms emanating from poverty and inequality to engaging young people in the search for solutions to actually lifting communities out of poverty and inequality, we have now started the process of putting a report together that will provide the establishment with extremely unique insights into what young people think a fairer society looks like

Reimagined – A fairer society through the eyes of young people. We are aiming to publish the report around May 2023 so that its recommendations can be considered by political parties creating their manifestos for the likely General Election in 2024.

With the Hope Collective now being such an eclectic partnership cohort we also wanted to find support roles for all the organisations and many individual professionals wanting to get involved. Part of the process with the Reimagine report will therefore see 10 sub groups created to help shape the recommendations going into the final report. These sub (work) groups will cover every societal touchpoint that impacts young peoples lives. From education, youth work and the Criminal justice system to sport, recreation, skills and employment, social housing and the environment. Social injustice, racism and division are also important themes being covered. The sub groups will each be independently chaired and have ten professional practitioners involved from the areas of expertise. 100 professionally engaged stakeholders supporting the process and working with young people to co-design a solutions focused piece of work

Poverty and inequality are man made phenomena of course it is the adult establishment that needs to take responsibility for creating a fairer society. Young people must be front and centre of the solution process though and that is what the Reimagined report is all about. Giving young people a safe and supported environment to have their voices heard

Having UK Youth (8,000 members) NCS Trust and Onside Zones fully supporting the project was a fantastic contribution to helping the project reach the stage it has. Now with many other youth orgs such as National Youth Agency and Princes Trust aligning we feel our bold ambition with REIMAGINED is justified and achievable.

The youth sector is fully behind the development of the UK network of Violence Reduction Units and understands the philosophy of public health approach to tackling social ills is that everyone has a role to play. This is of course heightened when we are talking about the most vulnerable young people

The project has the full backing and support of the policy team at number 10 Downing street who having engaged with the youth leadership team in a mini hope hack last November, fully appreciate the projects vision to give the youth of the UK a stake holding in the levelling up discussion

The Hope Collective operations team will be launching the Reimagined report plan including the Hope Hack tour 2022 full itinerary in early April. The tour kicked off in Reading with Thames Valley VRU on March 4th The voice of the future – why youth voice matters – Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit (tvvru.co.uk)

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog is you are encouraged to want to be part of the project you can email me on gary@hopecollectiveuk.com

I thought I would write a short blog to explain the Hope Collective project hashtag for the Hackathons of hope, or Hope Hacks as they have come to be known.

Go find a copy of any report published into the problem of violence impacting young people from vulnerable communities, youth violence, as the establishment labelled it, and you will find a reference to needing to “reframe the narrative”. Just about every report published this millennium!

The problem is it is an establishment narrative that the establishment didn’t want to change in the least so the idea of “reframing” it just wasn’t on their radar. The establishment has an uncanny knack meanwhile of being able to amplify these reports and even call for the changes called for to be implemented. Then it does nothing. Not where the issues are primarily caused by an environment of poverty and inequality. Issues not resolvable during 4 year political cycles more often than not end up in room 101. Fact not fiction

The Hope Collective is going to reset the dial and rather than continue to force feed young people establishment conversations about the symptoms of poverty and inequality such as knife crime, drugs, gangs and county lines, it is going to engage them in much healthier conversations about what they think a fairer society might look like. One where poverty and inequality is resolvable and equal opportunities are afforded each and every young person regardless of colour, class or creed.

In a nutshell we are changing the conversation because the conversation needed to change and we might just cause a whole heap of trouble along the way. Good trouble. The right kind of trouble.

Find the hashtag live on twitter #ChangingTheConversation and please feel free to join in!

G

When i first met my great friend, Richard Taylor OBE in 2004, I spoke to him about my thoughts on the violence impacting young people that already by then was far worse than in 2000 when he had so tragically lost Damilola on the streets of Peckham, South London

My observation at that time was that until we found solutions to poverty and inequality I thought the problem would be very likely to spiral out of control. Nobody would be glad to see a prophecy like that come to fruition!

By 2008 when we had lost 29 young people to interpersonal violence in London I was MD of the Trust and our theory of change had been established in trying to do things differently. The Spirit of London awards (SOLA) movement was testament to this. The biggest live youth awards show ever staged in the UK celebrating the kind of young person Damilola represented. Switching the dial from the constant media barrage of negativety around young people. We launched SOLA in 2009

In 2013 after one of our youngest SOLA alumni lost a friend and mentor to street violence and reached out to me for the support of the awards alumni in finding solutions I stepped away from my DTT role to help them set up a project called One Big Community. A peer to peer initative entirely focused on listening to young peoples thoughts and opinions on what was underpinning the problem and what long term solutions might look like. We staged incredibly raw and authentic peer to peer workshop style events and engaged thousands of young people in the process

This project played an integral role in the development of an all party Parliamentary commission into root causes youth violence that I also became the lead advisor for.

In 2019 after the Parliamentary commission released its final report I returned to support the DTT with the development of its 20th anniversary campaign. We decided to focus the project on a short essay Damilola had written shortly before his death. He had written about his vision of a safer World. He had written about hope!

I pulled together many of the organisations and key professionals that had supported the Parliamentary commission. There had been a very strong team ethic and sense of community around the parliament commission work and so it was a natural fit especially with so much momentum having been created with the adoption of the public health approach to safeguarding young people around the UK. Hope is the most important ingredient of all in a public health approach to supporting the most vulnerable after all!

We announced the plans on the evening of the 19th anniversary at a private screening of the BAFTA winning drama “Damilola our loved boy” at the Ritzy cinema Brixton

Our attempts to stage a series of events around the UK to commemorate the anniversary of the tragedy were thwarted by the Covid pandemic which eventually led to the memorial service itself planned for the date of the tragedy being cancelled. A huge amount of effort had gone into the planning and preperation so it caused heartbreak to Richard and his family and everyone involved when by a matter of days it fell victim to the second lockdown.

Our efforts were certainly far from in vain though as we had wanted to create a legacy for Damilola that could have long term sustainable impact so when the Prime Minister endorsed Damilolas date of birth 7th December as the National UK Day of Hope it was a fitting pay off for all the hard work that had gone into the planning in the first place. It will now serve as a legacy for Damilola in perpetuity. A day when young people are celebrated the lenght and breadth of the UK for their ambitions, aspirations and hopes

Boris Johnson backs Day of Hope for Damilola Taylor’s birthday – DUK News (dailyuknews.com)

The partnership cohort that had been brought together was now impressive with leading youth orgs UK YOUTH and NCS providing the youth interface and a wonderful group of young people coopted onto the youth leadership board to develop ideas to celebrate the Day of Hope with a series of online events

The development of the Hope collective membership was going from strength to strength with the UK network of Violence reduction units (VRU’s) also aligning along with corporate brands and statutory bodies such as the Coop and the Professional Footballers Association, the National Housing Associations Youth Network and the NHS. This in no small way played a role in the enablement of the Day of Hope being established with the full support of Downing Street

This Year the Hope Collective decided to become properly organised, develop a constitution and invest in a long term piece of work that would bring young people together across the UK and engage them in discussing solutions to poverty and inequality, what a fairer society might look if young people had a stake in levelling up their local communities.

The HOPE HACKATHONS would start with a pilot in 2021 that saw events staged in London, Manchester, Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow and then if proven to be successful be rolled out across the UK in 2022.

All the data and summary outcomes produced will be shared across the VRU network and with statutory authorities. The essence of hope after all is that it needs to be shared far and wide!

With National Citizenship Service (NCS) leading on the Hope Hacks and UK Youth which comprises of over 8,000 grass roots youth orgs in its membership network, managing the Day of Hope itself we are in extremely competent and safe hands on the youth voice interface side of the project. We also have the premier youth club specialists, Onside Zones very much a part of the group and playing an active role with the Hope Hacks. Add all the other ingredients in the pot and I think we are cooking something up that looks and smells a whole lot like change!

its a shame that mobile phone cameras weren’t really a thing back in the 1990’s as the old adage of “A picture is worth a thousand words” would sure take some of the strain from my typing fingers!

What a picture it would have made when I first visited the F.A. Premier League offices at Lancaster Gate. Hursty* had arranged the meeting with the CEO, Peter Leaver QC who was also a Director of Spurs. I mention this fact simply to prove all my marbles are intact and I have the memory of a healthy young Savanna elephant. Given the likelihood i will need to exercise every grey cell I possess in a court of law if the Premier League and Budweiser continue to pretend none of this ever happened it is just as well!

Anyway, back to the tiny room under a stairwell at the Football Association offices at Lancaster Gate W2 London. Oh yes, I should add that with the League only in its 4th season when this meeting took place the Premier League offices were not quite as swanky and plush as they are today. A tiny office with 3 desks, 1 secretary, 1 admin clerk, the CEO and 20 club shirts were dotted around the walls on clothes hangers. Yup, not even in frames!

Some weeks later Hursty and I were sat in Langham’s Brasserie restaurant with Ossie* explaining what had gone down in the meeting and I remember Os in typical Os style saying out loud “WTF is a spurs fan doing running the F&%$ league? “Its bad enough they have got Sugar selling all his satellite dishes to punters so they can watch the games FFS!!! Fu%$* Tottenham!!

Probably worth noting at this point that it had not benefitted Spurs in as much they had never won the thing and 25 Years on they still haven’t!! Ossie then went on to start talking about his battles with Spurs over the Years especially Mike England their old centre half. Great company and hugely enthralling for this Chelsea nuts kid who had worshipped him from the terraces in the late 60’s and early 70’s when he truly was the “King of the Kings Road”

Anyway the rationale for telling this story is that Peter Leaver loved the idea of the British Football Hall of Fame we presented to him and he was happy to give his blessing for a section of it to feature the Premier League. Subject to criteria that would need to be drawn up by FA legal team of course. And no, in case you are wondering, he did not want any remuneration for it. He was happy enough that our plan if it was successful included giving a big chunk of shares to the PFA for their benevolent fund.

Things were to change dramatically in the following couple of years before the project finally opened its doors to the public at London County Hall in 1999 as the FA Premier League Hall of Fame. A rebrand for one thing as not long after opening the Premier League pulled away from the Football Association.

The awfully tragic death of Chelsea vice Chairman Matthew Harding had a huge impact. If Matthew had survived the crash the project would probably have continued as the British Football Hall of Fame. With the backing of our great friend Michel Zen-Ruffinen the then General Secretary of FIFA a collaborative partnership with the FIFA World football “Hall of Champions” was always the planned and preferred option.

So how did the project come to be known as the Premier League Hall of Fame?

Well it is certainly not a case of “much ado about nothing” as there were enough twists and turns to rival Birmingham Spaghetti Junction on a bad day!

I am in the process of writing all about it actually. Call this blog a teaser!

Plenty of juicy football stuff and also plenty of non football stuff like the day model Katy Price jumped into the Thames from an RAF Helicopter as part of our opening ceremony. How Liam Gallagher went missing so Noel had to be Manchester City’s super fan on his own. The day we spent almost our entire marketing budget to stage a media event at Crystal Palace training ground calling to “save Crystal Palace” is a good one. This was the kind of activity I had always dreamed of “HOF” being involved in for the greater good of the game! Lots, lots and lots more!!

Anyways – That’s your lot for now!

Oh “what is the header all about you were thinking? The night we staged a media event to herald the opening when then Minister for Sport the right honourable Chelsea fan Tony Banks MP stood outside in the rain to pull the longest red chord in history to declare it officially open – Tony had sworn never to step foot back in County Hall after the previous Tory Government sold the old GLA building to Japanese property developers and Hursty and I had to go to every length possible to get him there on the night and taking part without breaking his pledge! Richard Scudamore the out going Football League CEO about to move on the same role at Premier League couldn’t make the event due being in Lytham St Anne’s for the Football League AGM so he made a video to be played on the night alongside one from FIFA. Michel paid tribute to the effort both Hursty and I had put into the project while Richard (the scud) said that he had not hesitated to want to be involved due the incessant passion of the guy he called the “football evangelist”

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog

G

*Hursty – Sir Geoff Hurst MBE – They think its all over!

*Ossie/Os – Peter Osgood – The greatest footballer to ever play the game. RIP my forever hero

The tension was fragile. It was only going to take a spark. The shooting of Mark Duggan provided it.

A week or so later and then Prime Minister, David Cameron held a press conference in Downing Street and declared “war on gangs” – Two things I took exception too at the time. The first was that the civil disturbances were far from being just about young people and the second one was the notion that it was gang related.

I am not going to get into the debate any further on this area of contention in this blog post suffice to say that the investment promised by the Government just like the investment promised in the 80’s by Thatchers Government after similar civil unrest never materialised just like it had never materialised then. The difference if anything this time is that things were made worse as the austerity cuts continued apace with poorest communities suffering badly as is always the case and cuts to youth services were decimated. Cuts to all front line services hurt the poorest communities far more than they hurt the more affluent but in the case of vulnerable young people at risk of crime and violence the impact was devastating

What also happened quite notably after Cameron’s declaration of “war on gangs” was the narrative within statutory authority departments changed markedly almost overnight. The “industrialisation” of violence impacting young people moved up a few gears as youth services already facing huge cuts were marginalised and funding for gang related interventions took precedence with the funding bodies. The “youth violence” label became as synonymous with funding bids as the swoosh was with hi top trainers!

Suddenly the youth sector was awash with organisations preaching intervention speak while traditional youth work was becoming marginalised. It also became even more ultra competitive than it had ever been. Academics have noted that the competitiveness of the charity sector makes the advertising and banking sectors look pretty tame in comparism!

So here we are in 2021. The EU referendum fractured and divided the UK like nothing in modern history. Race related hate crime reported to the police went through the roof and even returned to modernised football stadiums. Social media became a hot bed of far right anarchy meanwhile! Covid has ravaged the country more so than Brexit and highlighted health disparities between rich and poor communities on an apocalyptic level. Now with the media full of stories of corruption and malpractice within the Government and sleaze becoming more the norm than not with politicians we are treated to another wave of anti youth narrative and a promised increase in stop and search tactics by the police.

Will there be fresh riots? The question is surely why not?

Maybe its time we talked about unfairness and strategic establishment suppression!

#ChangeTheConversation

• 

Thrown out of French …. Again.

Cricket Practice cancelled…Again!

Average day at school for a 12-year-old “A” grade student who hates French lessons. Now he is home early and impatient to get changed into his football kit and get over the fields. Peter Osgood. He was always Peter Osgood. The number nine sown on his shirt and shorts by his Nan. She had to sow strips of white cloth down the side of the shorts to make them authentic like Peter Osgood’s. Back in the day. Way back in the day!

Something’s not right. He’s in the front room. TV, sofa and easy chair. All in place. What is it that’s got him spooked? His Dad’s policemans uniform is thrown all around the place. He recognises the mess. It looks like the way his bedroom was intended to look in about 5 minutes time as he rushed to get out of his school uniform and into football kit in 30 seconds flat!

Noise upstairs from his parent’s bedroom.

Keep it quiet she said. Best nobody knows. All a mistake it’ll just blow over!

Then he is chasing the taxi cab down the road shouting obscenities and throwing bricks. Kept it quiet just like she asked. Scared to death of his Dad finding out that he knew but never told. 3 months of not being able to look her or him in the eye. Now she’s gone. He feels sadness, pain and most of all guilt!

Cries of pain from Jason the family dog are ringing in the air. He meanwhile has a knife being held to his throat. Its 1 year later and he has a new step mum and two older step brothers. The oldest step brother is 16 and thinks it is funny to kick dogs while wearing steel toe cap boots. He is beside himself with anger but the step brother’s older friend holding the knife to his throat is pressing it hard to the point of breaking the skin. He is 13 and his assailant 18 it is a bit of a mismatch. The older boy is a bully, part of a gang who terrorise kids younger than them who do not support the same team. Peter Osgood would never have played for Arsenal!

Some months later he wakes up in the middle of the night. His Dad is slapping him around the head. He takes the beating. Hard to argue that he is responsible for the state of his two step brothers as the dry blood on his hands is pretty incriminating.

Standing outside the head teacher’s office with his dad in full police uniform standing beside him. He is full of shame and guilt. He refuses to say why he has committed the crime. The chisel had punctured the skin of the 6^th former but luckily not done any worse damage. He is expelled immediately even though he had always been a model pupil. Apart from in French classes that is. He didn’t want to explain that for months he had endured bullying from older pupils calling his mother a whore and a slag. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone but him. It is what his Dad had called her anyway!

Living with his Grandparents is not ideal. Theirs is not a relationship built on love. He loves them both but they constantly use him as a weapon against each other and a very confused boy is just becoming more and more insecure. He loves them dearly though. His granddad Billy is a proud Irishman who loves to tell tales of bar room battles when he had first moved to England. Woe betide any local Englishman who dared to take on Billy in a bare knuckle boxing bout outside the pub the challenge had been laid down in. His Grandmother meanwhile works three office cleaning jobs to pay the bills. She tells him tales about growing up in Ireland during the troubles. How once the British soldiers came to her home and tortured his Great grandmother in front of her by peeing in a cup of tea and making her drink it. They were called the Black and tans and they were looking for his Great granddad who was a member of the IRA.

One night his granddad Billy comes in drunk. More drunk than usual. His Granddad and Gran are shouting at each other. He is pleading with them to stop. Then his Gran is pushed to the floor. A red mist descends and his Grandfather is on the floor beside her.

The cold of the night is now biting deep into him. A cardboard box offers little resistance from the chill winter on the south bank of the river.

A boy will always need his mother and where she is now the landlady of a pub it seems a good sanctuary from the street life that had claimed him. He is 15 years young now and South London is his new adopted home.

He is hoping to find somewhere he can belong again. Call home again

At first he thinks a stray cat has entered the premises. He creeps down the stairs from the 5^th floor room he is lodging in. Slowly he makes his way down to the ground floor where the pub has been closed for many hours. It must be at least 3pm in the morning. The whining and gargling sounds grow louder as he descends the final flight of stairs. What he sees as he turns the corner will stay with him forever. Regardless of what he had called her the night she left his Dad, she was still his Mum.

Seeing her with her hair pulled out, face covered in blood and bruises. Her Roman nose smashed beyond repair and blood and broken teeth dripping from her mouth. He vaguely recalls seeing the twisted and angry face of her assailant moving towards him. He knows the face well by now, it is the face of the man he had mistaken for his Dad that fateful day when his World had changed forever. The red mist descends again. Then he blacks out.

The nurse is hovering over him. His head is hurting like hell. He sees himself in the mirror. His head is bandaged like an Egyptian Mummy. He has had 8 stitches in the wound. They had to wait for the swelling to go down and make sure there was no fracture to the skull. His mum has hit him with a glass soda syphon from the pub bar.

Realising his mother had been a long-term alcoholic to the point she accepted a man who would beat her to the point of near death as her ideal partner was hard to deal with. Realising that she would choose the beast over her own son who would try to protect her was completely heart breaking

His stepfather’s wounds would heal quicker than his own broken heart and shattered spirit. A broken leg, fractured wrist and several busted ribs make his stepfathers life uncomfortable for a while but nothing his own alcoholism won’t help him deal with. However the facial disfigurement caused by the wine glass used to try to cut his eye out would leave him with a life long memory of how his own brutality had rebounded on him.

On his own again the boy accepts violence now as second nature. It hadn’t come naturally to him but now it acted as a cloak of protection. Hit out first before being hit. Hurt before being hurt yourself. It’s a twisted reality but for a period its the only reality he knows!

The Years pass, the Boy becomes a Man. His struggle with depression would not manifest until later in life when his self doubt and insecurity would lead him into troubled waters and he would seek solace in alcohol & drugs. The black dog of depression would start to haunt him after a high profile business success turned to dust and then his father contracted severe Alzheimer’s before they could finally make their peace.

The memories fade and the pain subsides but a childhood lost is a childhood never regained. The angry boy never stopped being angry he just became a fragile man!

He would tame the violence and the anger but the sadness remained constant It would never be far away no matter sunshine and laughter. He could always turn the light on but never make the darkness leave the room entirely.

“We are not on this earth to accumulate victories, things, and experiences… but to be whittled and sandpapered until what’s left is who we truly are” Arianna Huffington

FOOTNOTE:

If you know of a young person who you have reason to suspect may have encountered ACE”s (Adverse Childhood Experiences) please encourage them to seek help – Depression can be harrowing for young people to deal with due the negative narrative and stigma attached to the term mental illness. Untreated though it will potentially cause anger and frustration that can all too easily lead to confrontational issues and in some cases violent tendencies.

It can be treated though. Those suffering in silence just need to be understood. To share their pain. To be assured they have a place in society. That things will get better if they allow people to help them

Mac – UK http://www.mac-uk.org/get-in-touch/contact-us/

The Amy Winehouse Foundation http://amywinehousefoundation.org/our-work/find-help/