FORMER WIMBLEDON STRIKER DAVID CONNOLLY GIVES HIS VIEW ON DECLAN RICE- PAGE 6

@sw_Londonerwww.swlondoner.co.ukFebruary 2019

Flying the flag

Twickenham speed skater on following in her Uncle’s footsteps page 3

Also inside• Track Cycling World Champion

Ethan Hayter — page 2• Training with Crystal Palace

Ladies FC — page 5• parkrun pioneer reflects on

running phenomenom’s15-year growth — page 15

• And much more

February 2019

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World Champion Hayter sets sights on triple goldETHAN HAYTER started 2018 as a promising young rider in the British Cycling acade-my. By August, aged just 19, he had become European and World Champion. It was a meteoric rise in such a short space of time and a statement that Britain has perhaps yet another golden goose on two wheels.

“It was surreal,” said Hay-ter. “While I was there it didn’t really sink in. Because it hap-pened so quickly at the time it was unbelievable. And then you go to races in Europe and you’re introduced as the world champion and it’s like ‘wow that’s pretty cool’.

“It was a whirlwind few weeks where I thought ‘Ok, I’ll try and go to the worlds. Then I was going to the worlds. Then we ended up winning.

“I then spent the rest of the year with the academy squad after the worlds and the Com-monwealth Games and you quickly forget that you’re world champion. It’s quite strange.”

“Winning Olympic gold doesn’t really enter my head on a day-to-day basis. But it is pretty cool to think it’s in the realms of possibility.

“Geraint winning the Tour is big because he’s come through the same academy as us. There’s a trickle-down ef-fect the whole way through so it’s a case of ‘if he can do it, I can do it’.”

Hayter’s invaluable experi-ence over the past 12 months on the track is something that will likely be looked back upon as the year he broke out onto world level. And it was coupled with racing four one-day stage races in Italy under the Team Sky banner.

Hayter contributed to Team Sky winning twice in an envi-ronment which will have done him the world of good, far removed from the controlled conditions of the track.

It is clear those around him see a future Olympic champi-on and star on the road. If he takes gold later this month in Poland, the excitement sur-rounding the 20-year-old will ramp up another notch but he still has a long way to go.

three golds which is crazy. I could do nothing for the rest of my life and be happy with that.”

With the success on both track and road which British Cycling has revelled in over the last decade it is becoming increasingly difficult for tal-ents like Hayter to stand out.

But he is doing everything right. When riders such as three-time Olympic gold med-allist Ed Clancy, who won the team pursuit world title with Hayter, describe him as ‘some-thing special’, it’s hard not to sit up and take note.

And Hayter recognises the value in receiving praise from veterans such as Clancy. He is also appreciative of the privileged position he is in given the success riders have previously achieved coming through the British Cycling set-up as a teenager, including Tour de France winner Ge-raint Thomas.

“Ed was Olympic champi-on 11 years ago so it’s great to have him around. We’re all pretty young in our early 20s and it’s great to have his expe-rience around.

Now, Hayter returns to the UCI Track Cycling World Championships on February 27 with the potential of sweep-ing up three more gold med-als. He is primed to race in the team pursuit, which he is al-ready world champion in, the omnium and madison, spear-heading an extremely strong British endurance squad in Poland. It is one which prom-ises a great deal at the Olym-pics next year.

And the Herne Hill-born prodigy is confident his ex-periences from last year bode well for 2019, a year key in de-ciding his Olympic selection.

“We won last year and everyone’s probably in a bet-ter place than they were then so it’s looking good.

“We’re pretty much the strongest country in the world at the omnium now which makes it a bit harder to get selected. I won the Euros and then in the World Cups the lowest our other three riders have come is second.

“Until Tokyo it would be sil-ly not to have the track as my main goal. If all things go per-fectly I could come away with

By Dylan Terry

NEXT GEN: (From left to right) Ethan Hayter and Ed Clancy stand aloft on the podium after winning the 2018 men’s team pursuit at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in the Netherlands

SOLO: Hayter at the U23 Men’s Time Trial Championships

GLORY: Hayter in the team pursuit on their way to victory

February 2019

3www.swlondoner.co.uk

WALKING OUT at an Olym-pics carrying your nation’s flag with your teammates fol-lowing closely behind you is the dream for any athlete.

For Olivia Weedon, a Team GB short track speed skater from Twickenham, it also rep-resented a chance to follow in her uncle’s footsteps.

When the sixteen-year-old stepped out proudly clutching the Union Jack into the Koše-vo Stadium at the Sarajevo and East Sarajevo European Youth Olympic Festival earli-er this month, her ambitions were fulfilled.

Weedon watched on in 2014 as her uncle, and fellow speed skater, Jon Eley led out Team GB at the Sochi Winter Olym-pics.

Instantly, she was drawn to the idea of one day having the chance to do the same.

“It was such a massive hon-our,” explained Weedon.

“I have always wanted to follow in my uncle’s footsteps and just go to the Olympics. But to actually do so and carry the flag in front of the whole team, in front of a massive crowd was amazing. I can’t de-scribe the excitement that was inside of me.

“My uncle just told me don’t drop it!

“It was crazy stepping out into the stadium and how loud everyone was. I wasn’t expect-ing that many people to be there but there was 35,000 peo-ple there, and it was insane!

“I walked out and I was just hit with so much loudness. I couldn’t believe what was go-ing on! Having the whole team behind me, just screaming was insane.”

Around 911 athletes from 46 countries marched at the EYOF in Bosnia Herzegovina, competing over eight sports ranging from snowboarding to curling and ice hockey.

Weedon, who has skated

By Matt Long

Teen flies the flag for Great Britain at Olympics

since she was four years old, raced in the 500m, 1000m and 1500m as well as the mixed team relay with her team-mates Theo Collins, Sophie Robertson and Ollie Rowe and was delighted with her perfor-mance in the 1500m.

However, Weedon wants to see an improvement in her 500m and 1000m races after ex-iting in the quarter-finals and during the heats respectively.

She said: “I actually pretty pleased with myself. For the 1500m I shocked myself a lot. I got a massive personal best by four seconds and I came ninth, so I’m pretty happy with that.

“For the 500m and the 1000m I was a bit disappointed and I thought I could have done a lit-tle bit better but it’s all just an experience.

“The festival was great. It was really nice to have that downtime with other athletes and hearing about their rac-ing and how things work.”

The journey does not end there for Weedon, and the skater has big future aspira-tions including hopes of mak-ing the World Youth Olympics next year in Lausanne.

But with short track’s fund-ing being cut, Weedon appre-ciates making the step up to the next Winter Olympics in Beijing may be a tough ask.

She said: “I really want to qualify for the Wolrd Youth Olmpics because we’ve qual-ified one girl space but I just need to be the girl who quali-fies to go.

“In the long-term, I want to go to the Olympics but I’m not sure which one because our funding has been cut.

“It’s not massively affect-ing me at the moment but in a year’s time when I need to think about going into it full-time and think about where I want to be going to university it will affect things quite a lot.

“I was thinking about going for the next Winter Olympic games but it might have to be the one after that.”

ICE COOL: Olivia Weedon hopes to build on her success at the Eu-ropean Youth Olympic Festival earlier this month

February 2019

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Resilient Richards raring to go ahead of Chicago

TOM Richards, in many ways, mirrors his sport. Squash has always been there or therea-bouts in gaining Olympic rec-ognition, but has never been included, while Richards’ ranking trajectory shows he has often been on the cusp of an elusive top-10 spot.

Now, on the eve of the World Championships in Chicago, the world number 21 is within reach of challenging those at the top.

“My target this season is to

English players, statistics show that squash participa-tion is on the decline in the UK losing more than 80,000 people to 341,000 in the past two years. Richards believes enticing youngsters to play the game is key.

“I think getting squash into schools would be one of the biggest steps, where you could expose the sport to thousands of children. Then, if you get a small fraction of them con-tinuing to play, then obviously numbers will grow.”

That being said, there seems to be no such problem at St George’s Hill Club in Wey-bridge, where Richards trains.

“What I hear from members is that gone 5pm, it’s usually booked out until 10pm and pretty chock-a-block,” he said.

Richards also appropriately points out in regions such as North America and the Far East,the game continues to grow, which makes the contin-uous IOC rejection even more baffling. The squash authori-ties’ latest attempt for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was scup-pered by wrestling’s reinstate-ment. They will undoubtedly go again in 2024, but Richards played down the importance of a potential inclusion.

“I think 30 years ago, there would have been a much big-ger chance of squash getting in because it fits all the ideals of an Olympic sport. But now the Olympics has become a lot more commercial, so it’s now more about what revenue sports can bring in and how many tickets it can sell.

“The exposure the Olym-pics would give squash would be massive, and it would help take the game to the next level, perhaps making inroads into really popular sports. I would love the opportunity to com-pete at a Games, and it would be the pinnacle, but it’s not a huge frustration. We’ve got a strong tour and we can make a living from squash, so we’re

strong enough without the Olympics.”

The rigours of life on the road are not lost on Richards given a recent back problem, but fortunately it only affected him for a few weeks.

“You have to manage your body quite well, otherwise you’re constantly on the edge of doing more harm,” he ad-mitted.

“It can be a little over-whelming, I think Rafael Nad-al once said ‘in terms of effect on your body, sport for the general population is good, but for elite sportsmen is bad’. Certain sacrifices are made, but I’m doing something I en-joy and love.”

And so, onto Chicago. Rich-ards lost in the quarter-finals of the National Champion-ships in Nottingham last week, and was seeded to make the semis. Thus, he is realis-tic about his chances at the Worlds next week, which is dominated by Egyptians (four of the top five seeds are from the North African country).

“Unless I was completely deluded, I’m not going into the World Championships think-ing I am going to win it. I’m looking to pick up a couple of scalps.”

An underdog attitude, from an understated competitor.

Six PSA World Tour titles have followed, as well as a career high ranking of 12 fol-lowing his most impressive individual win at the Toronto Open in 2012.

But the 32-year-old also won two European Team Champi-onships in 2012 and 2016, as part of a star-studded England group which included former world number ones Nick Mat-thew and James Willstrop.

“They’re both very differ-ent characters and I’ve got to know them a lot better as I’ve played and trained with them – they’re ideal role models.”

However, despite the con-sistent foundation of top

beat top eight players,” said Richards.

“The very top players are quality and a step above, but they’re not inhuman. They’re beatable, and have lost a cou-ple of times over the course of the season. Five or ten years ago, it was a bit different. The top five were streets ahead, but now it feels a lot closer and there’s many more opportuni-ties to cause upsets.”

Richards is a mature, level-headed yet focused character; qualities clearly developed since rebuffing uni-versity, taking the plunge and turning professional in 2004, at 18 years old.

By Kieran Jackson

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FOCUSED: The world number 21 preparing for a backhand

A quick-fire Q&A with Tom Richards...Who was your childhood hero? Roger Federer

If you weren’t a squash player, what would you be?A cricketer - it’s a perfect lifestyle, in the sun everywhere! Once I’ve stopped playing squash, I’ll pick up a bat again!

What is your favourite tournament?New York, Grand Central

What is your career highlight?Winning the Montreal Open in 2012. I beat former world number one Thierry Lincou, who was a hero of mine growing up – it’s my biggest win to date.

STRECTHED-OUT: Richards reaches for the ball at last week’s National Championships in Nottingham (Steve Cubbins)

February 2019

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Part-time Palace playing for full-time recognitionI PUT my hands on my knees, panting desperately to catch my breath. My legs felt like jel-ly, on the brink of giving way.

Just two hours earlier, I had stepped out beneath the Brom-ley FC floodlights to train with Crystal Palace Ladies. Little did I know it was going to take almost three days for my legs to feel normal again.

But simply speaking to the Palace squad, let alone taking part in their training session, is enough to make anyone feel guilty for finding any excuse to avoid the gym.

The players train three times a week at Bromley and play in the semi-professional FA Women’s Championship – the second division of wom-en’s football – every Sunday.

Yes, that’s right. Semi-pro-fessional.

Given their schedule, and the physical and emotional intensity of their training, it would be easy to assume that Palace are a full-time profes-sional women’s football club, however they are yet to fulfil that dream.

Instead, their weekly rou-tine encapsulates the difficul-ties of life on the fringes of professional women’s sport.

None of the players are paid to play for Palace, yet they commit the same num-ber of hours to training as the professional Women’s Super League clubs. They travel to Manchester United one day before juggling full-time work commitments and training the next.

Striker Ashlee Hincks, who works nine to five in recruit-ment and payroll, said: “It can become quite tedious and mentally draining. We often don’t get the recovery we need.

“It’s tough, You have to be really organised.

“It’s such a juggling act, but you get used to it after play-ing football at this level for so many years.”

Dedication and consistency – this is what marks semi-pro-fessional footballers like Hincks out from the rest of us.

The training sessions are planned meticulously. First, the arrival activities, then the warm-ups and technical ball skills, before moving onto a gruelling 20-minute transition drill.

The relentless tempo was momentarily quashed as we took a water break, but not for long. Assistant coach Norbert Farkas called us straight back over for an 11-a-side match. “Don’t worry, we’ve got oxy-gen,” he said.

Palace captain Freya Holda-way works as a gym manager at King’s College London, and

“It’s sad that you might be good enough as a player but the resources behind you can’t accommodate for you.”

Women’s football took a great leap forward this season with a radically restructured top division, featuring 11 fully professional teams.

And while Palace are enjoy-ing life in the Championship, the players know transition-ing to the top level will pay dividends for women’s sport in the long run.

Hincks said: “It’s brilliant to play in the Championship, but it’s our goal to be playing at the top level.”

Holdaway added: “I think the biggest improvement we would see would be in our own game.

“Not having to work full-time alongside playing foot-ball would be a massive weight

only recently started receiv-ing travel expenses, but with-out a salary, many are still making a loss from their foot-ball career.

In December 2017, a FifPro survey of women footballers revealed that 58% have con-sidered quitting for financial reasons.

And Hincks said Palace have been affected by the same problem, with players being forced to quit in the past as they could not manage playing football alongside a demanding full-time job in the police force.

Holdaway added: “It’s dis-appointing that at a certain point you have to commit to one or the other because we don’t have the same support as a full-time women’s club and football isn’t paid enough at our level.

while she has also adjusted to the demands of part-time football, she claimed the pres-sures are a restraint on the quality of the women’s game.

“It’s difficult. We train, I don’t get home until 11 and then I have to eat and get ready to open the gym at six in the morning the next day.

“As a result, some days I’m working on about five-and-a- half hours of sleep – far from ideal when experts prescribe eight hours post-workout for athletes.

“You’re always trying to recover quick enough to get up and go to work, and in my case, recover for a physical job and then make sure you are well rested for the Sunday game.”

Semi-professional female footballers train multiple times a week unpaid and have

By Ella Jerman

CAPTAIN: Freya Holdaway joined Palace four years ago VETERAN: Ashlee Hincks played in the first WSL season

NEW HORIZONS: Palace joined the second-tier of women’s football this seasonCredit: Tara Hook

lifted off our shoulders.”Each player wants to turn

fully professional, but should Palace get there, Hincks in-sisted they still need to focus on their plan-B given the cur-rent inequalities in sport.

“It would be fantastic to have the financial stability to take off some of the pres-sure,” she said.

“But even if we were pro-fessional, we have to look at what we can do when we do finish because we’re not men and we’re not earning tens of thousands of pounds a week.

“It would be nice to work part-time and make football our priority – the reverse of the situation we are in now.”

From the club’s set up in 1992 to climbing the second tier of women’s football, Dean Davenport, Palace Ladies head coach, has seen it all.

But he knows there is still a long way to go.

“Unfortunately football revolves around money, and we need more in the women’s game from sponsors and the FA,” said Davenport.

“Hopefully that will come sooner rather than later, be-cause right now there is still a gulf between us and the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea in the top divi-sion.

“It’s some of their dreams to make it into full-time foot-ball and hopefully at some stage we will get there here.”

Until then, Palace have benefited from the support of the men’s team. Wilfried Zaha made a financial dona-tion to help the development of the ladies’ amateur players in September and last week, Davenport confirmed Roy Hodgson has agreed to let him observe his training sessions.

“They’ve backed us to the heels, which has been fantas-tic,” he said.

“We are one club here, and that’s the way it will stay.”

Crystal Palace Ladies take on Lewes at Hayes Lane stadium, Bromley, on Thursday 21st February at 8pm. Tickets can be pur-chased online at tickets.cpfc.co.uk, or on the night. Under 16s go free and Crys-tal Palace Season Ticket Holders and Members can purchase for just £2.50.

February 2019

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Connolly refuses to chastise Rice for ‘brave’ England choiceSUWON, SOUTH KOREA. June 16, 2002. David Connolly replaced Ian Harte in the 82nd minute of Republic of Ire-land’s last 16 World Cup clash with Spain.

After a dramatic Robbie Keane equaliser and 30 min-utes of extra time, the proud Irishman was tasked with pulling his nation level in a penalty shootout they trailed 2-1.

His kick was saved by leg-endary Spanish keeper Iker Casillas and when Kevin Kil-bane missed as well, Ireland crashed out of the World Cup.

Despite his appearance on the world’s biggest stage, in south west London, Connolly is perhaps better known for his spells with Wimbledon and their modern-day off-spring AFC.

While the 42 goals in 63 appearances for the original Dons holds a special place in the 41-year-old’s heart, his re-cent focus has been on his na-tional team.

West Ham United’s 20-year-old midfielder Declan Rice last week declared his inter-national allegiance to Eng-land despite making three senior friendly appearances for Ireland.

Rice, like Connolly, was born in London and has Irish family yet the former West Ham striker never once con-sidered pulling on a shirt adorned with three lions.

“I was the first one in my family to be born in England. My parents came over and lived in the next county of Ireland as it was called then – ‘County Kilburn’.

“I was brought up wearing Galway hurling tops, Ireland football kits and going to Irish sport at weekends so when the opportunity came to play for Ireland, I jumped at it.”

Since Rice made his de-cision public some former Irish players have not covered themselves in glory with their admonishments of the young star.

From an Irish point of view, Connolly was naturally disap-pointed in Rice’s decision but he remained far more prag-matic when compared to some of his former colleagues.

“I thought Declan’s state-ment was very articulate. He’s very proud to be English but he was also proud to wear the Irish shirt so I’m not going to criticise him too much like some others have done.

“I hope he has a long and il-lustrious career for England. He certainly would have done for Ireland but he’s accepted a challenge to go and try and im-pose himself on England and

his debut and played against Manchester United and Ju-ventus in the Champions League which he described as the ‘stuff of dreams’.

The Willesden-born striker came through the academy at Watford and confirmed there was a huge technical gulf between English teams and those in Europe during his time on the continent.

He believes the gulf has closed now and when com-parisons were drawn between the career paths of him and Sancho, Connolly admitted he wasn’t technically as good as the young winger tearing up trees at Borussia Dortmund. However, in his opinion, his time with the former Euro-pean champions made him a ‘better player on every level’ before his return to England.

“I can understand why some players like Sancho would go abroad. After all, there’s more to football than just England!

“However, I do fear for some players who go abroad when they might be better off going

play for, that would be irrele-vant.”

With the expansion of the World Cup and the Euros, Con-nolly thinks it will be hard to avoid playing in a major tour-nament for England or Ireland in the coming years but still questioned the rules around representation.

“Friendlies are meaning-less now. To make three sen-ior appearances and then be able to move makes a bit of a mockery of friendly caps and goals and the whole friendly business. But that’s the rules. You can’t blame him for that.”

However, Rice is not the only young British star in the headlines at the moment.

Jadon Sancho and Patrick Roberts are part of a current crop of youngsters plying their trade in Europe but the trend was not as fashionable when Connolly moved to Fey-enoord in 1997.

After being spotted playing for Ireland against Holland in Rotterdam, Connolly signed for the Dutch side, scored on

that’s a bigger challenge. Good luck to him because that’s probably the hardest option he’s taken. He’s put himself under a little bit of scrutiny doing it but I like that.

“On the other hand, there aren’t a plethora of players who can perform at his level in his position for England and if there are, they’re coming to the end of their careers.”

When it comes to interna-tional allegiance Connolly is clearly heart over head but accepted, in this modern age, young players like Rice have much more to consider when deciding who to represent.

He mused: “If Ireland had been in a better position who knows. They’ve had a poor qualifying campaign and a change of management, Mar-tin O’Neill has left, Mick Mc-Carthy is only there for a cou-ple of years and maybe that uncertainty didn’t help.

“But that’s only if you’re looking at it from a career point of view because if that’s the country you wanted to

By William Pugh

IRISH THROUGH AND THROUGH: David Connolly maintained his love for Ireland throughout his career including his four-year spell with Dutch side Feyenoordto a side in the Championship and playing 40 games per sea-son.”

After two loan spells, 25 ap-pearances and seven goals for Feyenoord, Connolly eventu-ally moved back to England in 2001.

He signed for Wimbledon af-ter their 2000 Premier League relegation and went on to en-joy one of the happiest times of his career until the club moved to Milton Keynes. How-ever, despite the upheaval, he still looks back fondly.

“It was just a sad time, it wasn’t a big club with a lot of staff but it was a close knit staff. You knew everyone’s name and it was felt hard by everyone around the club.

“It had a charm about it because we’d be training on Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields by the A3 and if people wanted to walk their dog across our session, they had a right of way and they sometimes did.

“It wasn’t all glitz and glam but it was real.”

Despite the well document-ed transformation of the club since Connolly’s first spell, he returned for a short time in 2015 playing eight times and scoring once for AFC.

Wimbledon are clearly close to the Irishman’s heart and de-spite their position at the foot of League One and Neal Ard-ley’s November sacking, with a new stadium on the horizon and the way the club is run, he believes the future looks bright.

“Neal Ardley and the whole club were well ahead of where they anticipated they would be at this stage. I think it’s incredible where they are. In League One in 2019. You couldn’t write it!

“I think for Neal the promo-tion was brilliant but it just meant they were too far ahead of the curve. Being relegated is no bad thing at this moment in time. I think Neal got them a good few seasons ahead of where they should be and I think, Neal was a victim of his own success.

February 2019

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European conquerors IBB Polonia target trebleIBB Polonia London are put-ting British amateur volley-ball on the map. The team is enjoying its most successful season to date, recently cap-ping off an unbeaten record in domestic competition by lifting the NEVZA Club Cham-pionship on February 10. In doing so they got their hands on a European trophy, a feat matched by no other British club.

They are not stopping there, in their sights is the Super 8 ti-tle, the highest division of vol-leyball in England, and on Sat-urday they meet rivals Malory Eagles for a place in the Eng-lish volleyball cup final.

The club has enjoyed var-ying success since being formed in 1978 as a result of a merger between Polish YMCA and Gryf – two clubs with strong Polish roots. A league title win in 1986 stood as their crowning success until a new dawn unfolded for the team at the beginning of this decade under manager Krzys Hykiel. Polonia won the inaugural Super 8s competition in 2011, before a move to Brentford in 2013 and a name change the following year coincided with title wins in 2013, 2016 and 2017.

IBB Polonia’s polish influ-ence remains, and is exempli-fied by captain Bartek Kisiele-wicz, a former professional volleyball player in his native country. Five polish players represented the team in the last campaign, and although only two remain Kisielewicz remains proud to be part of a club close to his heritage.

“It’s special to be captain of Polonia, it has polish roots, a polish name and polish play-ers so it is a great club to be part of,” said Kisielewicz.

The team have made Brent-ford Fountain leisure centre a fortress this season, and the venue will host the tie against Malory Eagles – the most suc-cessful side in English volley-ball. In fact, Malory Eagles in

conquer any opponent, and they will certainly be hoping to replicate the form which took them to a historic victory.

Kisielewicz said: “It was amazing to lift the trophy, the whole experience was really enjoyable, we had fans wait-ing for us at the airport when

we returned and we became the first British team to win a European Cup.

“Every championship we win is special to me, playing in Europe is also a highlight be-cause to play at a high level is what I have always aimed for.”

Sivak added: “Playing in Denmark was a great expe-rience, we were a flag bearer, bearing the badge of British volleyball, trying to see what we could do on the European stage.”

Sivak is no stranger to Eu-ropean competition, repre-senting Slovakia in the 2003 European Volleyball Champi-onship. He previously played for Richmond Docklands but prior to that claimed the Slo-vakian league and cup in a successful spell at VKP Brati-slava.

The sport offers Sivak more than trophies however, he loves the sense of camarade-rie and new friendships that

come with it. He envisions long-term involvement with the club that extends beyond playing; working in youth de-velopment or management are both viable options for the libero.

The club is moving in the right direction on and off the court. Both players remarked upon the growing fanbase and the committed support shown throughout the season.

Kisielewicz said: “The best thing about IBB Polonia is the people who come and watch. We have a lot of supporters and recently set up a support-ers club, they are really spe-cial and come to every game, it makes me happy to play for them and they help us to achieve success.”

Should Polonia edge past Malory they will be primed to claim all three trophies avail-able to them, and maybe then everyone will know the name of IBB Polonia.

mood ahead of the play-offs but wary that the knock-out format could work against them, and the memory of last year’s final defeat will act as a staunch reminder that form isn’t everything.

European success will give the team belief that they can

their various incarnations, have amassed a total of 18 league titles, and the Toot-ing-based club have proved a thorn in the side of Polonia the past, pipping them to the league title in 1991 and 1994, as well as the National Cup in 1992 and 2010.

However, the mantle has since passed to Polonia – Kisielewicz joined the club in 2012 and already has three league titles and two cups to boast.

From a simple Google search the Nysa-born setter, 32, has gone on to achieve no-table success for the club he has captained for the previous three years, and he is spurred by the knowledge that every game brings his team closer to silverware.

“Malory Eagles are local ri-vals, they’re a strong team and with it being the semi-final of the cup it will be a very special occasion,” added Kisielewicz.

“I am very optimistic be-cause we haven’t lost in do-mestic competition this sea-son, our mentality is very strong, we’re working on our fitness and we’re set for the semi-final of the cup.”

Teammate Marcel Sivak, 36, shares the sentiment of his skipper, and although vol-leyball is all about enjoyment for the Slovak, he believes that getting to this stage of the competition shows the hard work and commitment the players have put in.

Sivak said: “I am looking forward to it tremendously, it’s one of those milestones.

“This season is great, so far we are performing sometimes beyond expectations, we all have high aims but you don’t always expect to achieve them.

“The team as a whole has broadened their horizons, they have high targets, not just winning game to game but trying to set high stand-ards and that’s why we’re at this stage.”

The NEVZA cup champi-ons have won all ten league games in the Super 8 this year. They will be in a confident

By Kealan Hughes

SMASHING WIN: Marcos Aldazabal fires the ball across to help IBB Polonia to a first European victory in Denmark

EURO CHAMPIONS: The team celebrate their win over BK Marienlyst FINE MARGINS: Semi-final hangs in the balance

February 2019

8www.swlondoner.co.uk

AT ELITE level, sport can cap-tivate audiences worldwide, make the players millions of pounds a year, and have a gen-uine bearing upon national, and even international, poli-tics.

But the sports where this applies, such as football and the American Big Four, were developed centuries ago, and have built upon generations of history.

When Daniel Grant became the president of a new, resur-rected sport called Wallball in 2011, hardly anyone outside of his social circle would have batted an eyelid.

But the 33-year-old doc-tor has lofty ambitions for a sport he believes fits perfect-ly within a changing world that is seeing green, outdoor spaces required for tradition-al games such as football and cricket virtually disappear.

tournament reached capacity over the two days of competi-tion, but the primary school event the following Monday helped launch Wallball into eight primary schools, which for Grant was the biggest breakthrough.

“The adult game as a whole is useful, but for me it’s prob-ably the least important of what we do over the event,” he explained.

“It was our biggest and best Open to date. The numbers were excellent, and it helped create packages launching a year’s worth of activity.”

Enough funds were raised to support a managerial role, whose work has close ties with the Grenfell area.

Wallball’s social impact means it is the perfect sport to help bring happiness back to a devastated community.

Building on 2018’s achieve-ments, this weekend’s UK Open will see an extra school event added which, in part-nership with the Jack Petchey Foundation, will target chil-dren aged 11 to 18.

“There’s a massive social re-turn to Wallball, but it’s really hard to get money in for social return,” Grant explained.

“You rely on grant funding. It wears you down applying for these stupid grants.

“We’re now tackling sec-ondary schools. Secondary schools are much harder, and that’s where a lot of the health inequality and physical inac-tivity all starts.”

With the Jack Petchey Foundation’s support, courts will be built at two larger schools where the brand new

The prominent national tournament, the UK Open, takes place at Westway Sports & Fitness Centre near North Kensington this weekend – its venue for many years.

The sports complex has changed hands constantly during Grant’s tenure, but it now has a long-term arrange-ment with Everyone Active which has provided a stable home.

In 2018, the centre played host to the most successful Wallball tournament so far.

“We had a really good time last year – it was a few months after Grenfell as well.

“We always intended to do a community thing but it really turned into a proper commu-nity event.

“Last year felt like make or break. We thought, ‘let’s just go for it,’ because if it works, we get the kind of success we’ve had over the last year, so it was worth doing.”

The international level

“The background of the sport is every country hits balls against walls with their hand – Gaelic handball, fives in the UK – and Wallball is a standardiser, it’s the simplest one to do.

“But it’s born on the streets – it’s designed for inner cit-ies, people with nothing, and you’ve got a wall and a ball – it makes a lot of sense.

“That’s why a lot of the work we do is heavily tied into social prescription, physical activity for health, and with an increase in urbanisation, it fits the mould really well.

“We say, ‘any ball, any wall, any time’.”

Grant is also the founder of Wallball’s European Tour which regulates a game played in various guises around the continent.

Clearly, this is a man full of ideas, and with a steadfast belief his sport can offer more than just being an entertain-ing spectacle.

By Kieran Wellington

WELCOMED WITH OPEN ARMS: UK Wallball president Daniel Grant addressing a group of primary school children at last year’s UK Open – secondary schools will also get involved this time

SELFIE TIME: Grant posing alongside Wallball’s Team GB

GLOW: Children look on as a volunteer shows how the game looks in fluorescent light

facilities will also be utilised by satellite schools, further highlighting Wallball’s em-phasis on supporting the poorest social backgrounds in the capital.

But Grant’s ambition spreads beyond those age groups, and even beyond his sport.

“You look at the knife crime going on and a lot of the gang stuff is coming around again.

“This is when they talk about sport potentially break-ing down boundaries – that’s where something like Wall-ball fits in.

“Communities come to-gether in safe, active plac-es and in London we’ve lost them all. That’s not great for community cohesion.

“But we’re hiring for a re-ally innovative, urban sport development job with London Sport, which is awesome.

“The idea is to try and acti-vate the grey spaces through an urban activity, and Wall-ball is seen as a legacy sport.

“It can activate an area, and once the community start coming around, then we can start layering on basketball, tennis, parkour and outdoor gyms.

“I don’t think that job has existed anywhere in the world before.”

All these initiatives have led UK Wallball to be nom-inated at the London Sport Awards at Twickenham next month.

The Sports Unite Award recognises organisations who use sport to improve social in-tegration in London, and UK Wallball’s selection proves Grant’s work is making a sharp impression.

If he continues, who knows how many lives Wallball can

Why Wallball will alter your outlook

February 2019

9www.swlondoner.co.uk

‘Shortsightedness’ hurting ice hockey says Streatham chief AS THE profile of ice hock-ey continues to grow in this country, one south London club hope to play a leading role in the vanguard of pro-gress.

Streatham Ice Hockey club, a team founded in 1932 with predominantly Canadian players, want to do more than fly the flag for the sport in the capital.

Mere mentions of ice hock-ey in the United Kingdom are both fleeting and peripheral but, fuelled by the Great Brit-ain national team’s promotion in 2018 and individual success stories, that could be about to change.

In the National Ice Hock-ey League (NIHL) where Streatham ply their trade, an impending league restruc-turing which team manager Graham D’Anger says is ‘90% going to happen’, could see the composition change in time for the 2019-2020 campaign.

The move has been mooted two years after the NIHL be-came the de-facto second tier following the demise of the English Premier Ice Hockey League (EPIHL).

D’Anger has accused Brit-ish Ice Hockey and fellow teams of being scared of change though and believes a long-term plan must be imple-mented to safeguard the sport at all levels.

He said: “I think it is short-sightedness in the way our governing body and some of the teams look at it, it’s all for themselves.

“I would be happy if we sat down and tried to work out a five or 10-year plan to work out what we are going to do.

“If next year we do change it and more or less go back to what we had two years ago, fine but is that going to work in the long term? Let’s sit down and look at it.

“British Ice Hockey don’t want it, they want to keep it as it is. We’re saying it is not working and we want to change it.”

There are logistical and financial challenges aplenty posed by playing semi-pro-fessionally in a league with teams who are described by D’Anger as professional in all but name.

Unlike the import-heavy top-level Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) where over-seas players take up 14 places on club rosters, only two are permitted in the ‘pay-to-play’ NIHL where players balance on-ice commitments with full-time jobs.

But Swindon Wildcats, Pe-terborough Phantoms and Bracknell Bees all defected

public usage at Streatham’s purpose-built ice arena.

D’Anger and head coach Jeremy Cornish both share an ethos for youth development but have expressed concerns that the jump from the juniors to the NIHL is too great with-out another league to bridge the gap.

Accessibility and a lack of dedicated spaces is hinder-ing grassroots development and could damage the sport’s attempts to break through to the mainstream of the British sporting consciousness.

The equation is simple for D’Anger: more rinks will widen the number of par-ticipants, grow the number of teams and therefore have a trickle-down effect on the number of leagues.

But the process of bringing players through is a time-con-suming exercise and D’Anger concedes there is the very real prospect that players stop playing once they reach the age of 18 if a pathway is not made available for them.

“They’re coming through slowly and even now they are

only 17 or 18,” D’Anger said. “It takes time. To bring your

kids through you’re looking at five, 10 years minimum to start seeing any fruit coming through. That’s what we’d love.

“The club’s always been that way and I think it’s good to have somewhere for the kids to aspire to and aim for. You don’t want them to get to 18 and have nowhere to go.”

All this uncertainty at the grassroots juxtaposes so strik-ingly with the mood on a na-tional level owing to Great Britain’s historic promotion to the top tier of the World Championships last year.

Not to mention, too, that ex-Sheffield Steelers forward Liam Kirk became the first British born and trained play-er to be drafted by a National Hockey League side when he was selected by the Arizo-na Coyotes in the 2018 entry draft.

Media coverage, while small and rarely in the mainstream, has been boosted by a televi-sion deal that sees FreeSports broadcast a select number of

“I would say we are hoping it will go back to what the leagues looked like two years ago but we’re still waiting for confirmation.”

D’Anger conceded that Streatham cannot hope to compete against sides who have the luxury of training three or four times a week.

The RedHawks by contrast have limited ice time and are only permitted to train once a week as they try to reconcile competing commitments with

from the former second tier EPIHL to join Streatham in the National League South Di-vision 1 and arrived with big-ger budgets.

“There was a very big gap of haves and have nots which the league and everyone has looked at this year,” D’Anger said.

“You have had Invicta Dyna-mos and Milton Keynes Thun-der that have near enough folded because they can’t com-pete.

By Matt Ford

WAITING GAME: Streatham await news about the proposed restructuring of the NIHL (PICTURE CREDITS: Mel O’Brien/Fusional)

ETHOS: The RedHawks retain a commitment to youth

EIHL games alongside a week-ly highlights package from around the rinks that will help to expose the sport to a new generation of fans.

It is easy to forget, after all, that ice hockey is the single most watched indoor sport in the entire country.

However, D’Anger’s focus is purely on securing a solution to the league’s composition so Streatham can continue to progress on and off the ice.

Close links with football clubs Dulwich Hamlet and Tooting & Mitcham United and an emphasis on forging a family-oriented atmosphere demonstrates the RedHawks’ perceptiveness to the value of community.

Because as D’Anger ex-plains, it’s getting people hooked that counts.

Only when people engage with ice hockey can it hope to command the sort of interest that facilitates participation at all age groups.

For the the youth develop-ment on which Streatham pride themselves, that must remain a key focus.

February 2019

10www.swlondoner.co.uk

THE DOJO can be a male-dom-inated environment, but a Wimbledon Brazilian Jiu Jit-su club is trying to change that.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a form of martial arts and the Wim-bledon BJJ club has started a campaign to get more women involved in the sport.

The club is affiliated with the Fight Sports team which has bases in London and Mi-ami and their head coach Carl Fisher is a black belt in the discipline.

Fisher, a former doorman, takes classes at the Holistic Fitness Studios in Wimbledon on Mondays and Wednesdays and believes the sport would be beneficial to women.

“Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a

improve every day a little bit. “This trains parts of my

body that I have never trained before and it helps a lot with my confidence and being able to go anywhere with my head held up.”

The training involved in the sessions includes a mixture of techniques from different forms of Jiu Jitsu including self-defence which is then fol-lowed by specifics and spar-ring which are real life situa-tions.

Fisher cited the constant testing skills as one of the main differences between Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and other types of martial arts.

“Your skills are pressure tested in every class, when you train specifics and every time you spar or roll with a fellow student,” said Fisher.

“When you’re training live

under pressure there are no hiding places, so you have to utilise your skills or it’s you that will be tapping out.

“Learning BJJ can take time, not everyone progresses at the same time, so it can be frustrating seeing your team-mates improve at a faster rate than yourself but don’t ever let that worry you.

“Everyone is a winner for stepping onto the mats in the first place. We were all begin-ners at one point in our lives.”

Fisher also admitted there is a multitude of positive health benefits by stepping onto the mats, as it is an ide-al venue to leave behind the stresses of the day and get yourself into better shape.

The dojo can be an intimi-dating environment if it is a class full of men and you are the only woman, but finding

the right class to take part in can help your experience.

Soares acknowledged that finding a space where you feel welcome and where the other people in the club help you is the best way to get involved.

“Don’t be afraid. The first step is going to a gym. Most of the time it will be dominated by males which can be quite intimidating but just find a place where you can feel wel-come and know that the guys will have your back,” Soares said.

“Most of the people who train are there to help you, they are not there to hurt you. Don’t be afraid to do the first step and just keep going.

“Tell who you are fighting with and who you are train-ing with what your limits are and you can just improve from there. Take it step-by-step.”

club in November 2017 after she was recommended to take up Jiu Jitsu and earned her first stripe on her belt just five months after taking up the sport.

“I’ve done sports my whole life, but I wanted to try some-thing different and I travel a lot for work and for pleasure. I travel by myself all the time and wanted to feel safe and confident, so my cousin rec-ommended me to do Jiu Jit-su,” Soares said.

“I did a try-out here and everyone was super welcom-ing. They didn’t push me, they always tried to help and were very respectful, so I kept com-ing. I got my first stripe after my first competition.

“I had never done martial arts in my life and it is some-thing that pushes my limits in a different way. I just want to

great martial art for women, as it offers techniques to de-fend themselves that actually work in a live situation,” Fish-er said.

“It’s a very realistic art to train in and offers much more than self-defence skills: there’s an increase in self-confidence, cardio and endurance.

“But most of all training BJJ is a lot of fun, there’s a great social side to training, where real long-lasting friend-ships are made on the mats.”

Similarly, to other martial arts, belts and stripes are earned in Jiu Jitsu. Everyone starts out as a white belt, but you earn stripes through com-petitions and gradually move up to blue belt, purple belt, brown belt and finally a black belt.

Ligia Soares, 26, who works in social media, joined the

By Nicola Kenton

TEAM: A post-workout team picture of the members of the Wimbledon Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club who took part in the session reporter Nicola Kenton, far left, attended on Monday

WOMEN: Carl Fisher (right) with female club members

ON MONDAY February 18 I trained with the club at their Wimbledon home. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the session especially as I had never taken part in any type of martial arts train-ing before. I was welcomed into the group and told how the class would pan out. Additionally, if there was anything I didn’t want to do, or I was unsure about, I didn’t have to join in.

Cardio exercise is not my strongest point, so the warm-up was probably one of the trickiest elements – even though it only involved a gentle jog! We also practiced forward and backward rolls,

which I’m used to doing in a swimming pool and not on land. When I struggled with the backwards roll, I was taught a different technique which enabled me to complete them much better.

The next part of the session focused on techniques, beginning with the ba-sics and building up to the more com-plex moves. Pummeling was the main technique I used, before learning how to do an arm drag and then rolling your partner onto the floor.

Meanwhile, others in the class were doing more complex wrist and arm locks as methods of self-defence. After-

wards, the training moved to specifics where the group was split into pairs with the aim of one person mounting the other to win their battle. Finally, the group split into pairs for sparring where the aim was to mount or make your opponent tap out before everyone did a cool-down.

Considering I had no idea what to expect, I was pleased with the progress I made in that one session. Admitted-ly I was sore the next day, but I felt as though I had picked up small parts of the technique from just the 90 minutes I spent with the club.

Pummeling, mounting and forward rolls: My experience at BJJ

Martial arts club with a different fight to contest

February 2019

11www.swlondoner.co.uk

Footballer’s quest for an ordinary life after cancerMANY youngsters lead ordi-nary lives and dream about the prospect of them one day becoming extraordinary.

There are precious few, however, who aspire to com-plete the opposite journey.

It is this latter category where teenage footballer Damary Dawkins currently belongs.

Damary, a member of Crys-tal Palace’s Elite Player Devel-opment Centre, was diagnosed with Acute Lymophoblastic Leukaemia, a rare form of blood cancer, aged nine and has since seen his world turned upside down, in the words of father Tony.

Having turned 13 a fortnight ago, though, after undergoing a life-saving operation before Christmas, he is hoping it is now time for fate to cut him some slack.

“Given where he’s coming from I think he’s very grateful for all the little things he can do at the moment,” Tony said.

“Sometimes you have to look at those things and be blessed you can do them.”

Last summer, following three years of intense chemo-therapy treatment, Damary’s family were told he had re-lapsed and needed a stem cell transplant before Christmas in order to survive.

No relative could provide a match, while the underrep-resentation of those with Af-rican-Caribbean heritage on the worldwide register meant his chances of salvation from elsewhere were slim.

Crystal Palace organised two recruitment drives dur-ing the autumn to drum up support, with nearly 200 peo-ple registering an interest to become donors, but the search remained unsuccessful.

However, just as all hope seemed lost, Damary’s Christ-mas miracle came to pass, when his hospital revealed they had found a match from an anonymous donor in the United States.

The transplant took place

have seen Damary make his first steps on the road back to normality – or at least some-thing resembling it.

Having had Christmas in isolation he was reunited with his own bed in January, where he currently spends his time speaking to friends online and occasionally challenging them to PlayStation games.

On February 8 he celebrated his 13th birthday with dinner at a Chinese restaurant, be-fore meeting up with a lifelong friend to go shopping.

Next week he will resume his school studies, having missed the last term-and-a-half, with a private tutor com-ing to teach him at home.

While in September he hopes to return to action on the football pitch, having al-ready paid one visit to Euro Dagenham to watch one of his team’s matches.

Football has always been Damary’s most reliable source of happiness and it put a smile on his face again last month, with Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling visiting him in hospital and Crystal Pal-ace winger Andros Townsend sending a video message.

“I like the sport because it’s fun,” Damary explained.

“My mind is clear when I play football. I don’t have to think about anything else.”

Damary would happily be-gin playing again now, but Tony is adamant the process of readjusting to life outdoors must not be rushed.

“I’m letting him and his body have time to recover.

“Damary has had three or four years going in and out of hospitals, where he’s laying down in bed for long periods of time, so he’s kind of got used to it.

“Eventually I think he will get out of it, but everything is ‘slowly slowly’.

“He’s just trying to get used to normal life again.

“Damary has taken a big step forward since Christmas but at the same time we’re still worried.

“It’s getting easier, but we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s just one day at a time.”

on December 20 and needed just 20 minutes to bring his family’s four-year-long night-mare to an end.

“It happened just in time,” Tony admitted.

“He wouldn’t have lasted beyond December. It was now or never.

“We didn’t tell Damary about the donor until the last moment because we didn’t want to get his hopes up in case it didn’t happen.

“When we eventually told him he was really happy.”

As if having his life saved by a stranger at the elev-enth hour wasn’t incredible enough, Damary then stunned his hospital by completing his recuperation far quicker than they had anticipated.

“They said it would take about three months before he could come out of hospital, so we were told not to expect anything much before then,” Tony explained.

“But he came home within a month, in record time. There are other children who had stem cell transplants at the same time as him and are still in there now.

“Damary has done pretty well for himself so far.”

Remarkable though it was to recover in such a short space of time, Damary’s transplant does not guarantee he will be free from cancer forever.

There remains a 50% chance it will return at some point in his life, with conse-quences likely to be terminal should it return within two months of the transplant.

His recovery is progressing well, though, with nurses last Thursday giving him the all-clear to reduce his weekly hos-pital visits from two to one.

“The hospital kept ask-ing whether we wanted to go through with the transplant even though it wasn’t guaran-teed to work,” Tony recalled.

“I told them: ‘I’m not being funny, but 50% was a better chance than what you were giving him before, so I’ll take 50% all day long’.”

With four years of intermi-nable hell finally behind him, the first two months of 2019

By Will Beckman

TIME TO EAT: Young Damary preparing to have dinner at a buffet restaurant (Credit: ACLT)

SMILE: Crystal Palace footballer Damary Dawkins, 13, while in hospital last year (Credit: African-Car-ibbean Leukaemia Trust)

February 2019

12www.swlondoner.co.uk

Former Epsom boxer revelling outside the ringOFTEN in sport, coaches rem-inisce about the glory days of when they were taking part themselves.

Being a coach represents another chance to be involved in the sport they love so much, but it is almost always consid-ered to be second best to being in the heat of battle itself. Not for Chris Gauntlett.

Chris opened his second boxing gym in Epsom in Jan-uary this year and his journey to becoming a hugely respect-ed boxing cornerman is some-thing to be admired.

Surprisingly, he feels more freedom being a coach for young boys and girls than when he was in the ring fight-ing for clubs such as Foley Arms Amateur Boxing Club and Epsom & Ewell.

“I never thought I’d enjoy coaching as much as I do but I absolutely love it now because I’m too old to do the boxing,” he said.

“I just wanted to do things my way and it’s proved to be successful up until this point.

“It was a different time, the coaches previously were do-ing things to the best of their ability.

“But times move on and even though the sport is ex-actly the same, with the same rules, you have to be able to move on.”

When he looks back on how he started in boxing, Chris instantly fell in love with the sport, not because of the op-portunity to throw punches against an opponent, but due to the fears, the inhibitions and the anxiety of fellow new-comers that he could resonate with.

“I was about 15 or 16 years old, which is quite late real-ly compared to some of the youngsters that I’ve got com-ing through in the gym.

“It was the first thing I did that I really fell in love with, there was just so much about it.

“It wasn’t the aggressive side or the brutal side of it, there’s so much more in box-ing than that.

“The way it brings people to-gether from all backgrounds, I see it more now but I even saw it then.

“I could relate with the anx-iety that newcomers felt when they joined a boxing club.

“From the moment I stepped in the ring, it’s been the only sport that I’ve really been fo-cussed on and I’ve absolutely loved it.”

His love for the sport is clear in the way Chris coaches the young people at his gyms, and he has clear strategies on the way he wants to teach them

than being right at the top of the tree as it teaches a lot of other things such as the dis-cipline involved, respecting others and learning how to dig deep from moments where you are really low.”

Chris was named Surrey Coach of the Year in October 2016 and there is little doubt his time as a cornerman for young boys and girls is prov-ing to be extremely fruitful, but when asked about what

his secret is, his emotions were evident.

“You give 100% when you enjoy what you are doing and I absolutely love what I do.

“I’m a people person as well and I’m just from a working class family so I know where my roots are at.

“I can speak to these kids on a level where I really under-stand them.”

With an accolade like this, one would expect Chris to har-

bour ambitions to go further in his career and train some of the best boxers nationally, but he realised the impor-tance of his home.

“I’m an Epsom lad and I feel comfortable here.

“It’s paid off really because there are parents and grand-parents who know you from when you were boxing and they trust their kids with you.

“It’s a huge buzz to have that reputation and to enjoy something you do for a living, it’s good to get up in the morn-ing.”

Despite staying in Epsom, he is not resting on his laurels and wants more youngsters to get involved.

“I just think everybody needs a chance in life and re-gardless of the mistakes they made, they should be given a chance to correct them and what better place to do that than at a boxing gym.

“I make sure to put my arm round all the kids, but we in-stil the concept of treat people how you want to be treated.

“That’s a rule I like to live by in my life.”

es of their boxing journey.“I really wanted to make it

more defensive than offensive for the new guys coming in because there is nothing more off-putting than a punch on the nose.

“Not every kid that walks through the doors wants to be the next world champion, but it’s important we let them have dreams and let them en-joy it.

“Boxing’s got more to give

boxing, a sport he calls an art.“I learnt through my own

experiences when coaches used to just put you in the ring and see how you got on and see how tough you are but it’s not about that.

“I think that helped me in the future because when I started coaching, I was always putting an arm around the shoulder of people and bring-ing guys that may well have been put off in the early stag-

By Yashas Mudumbai

ON THE ROPES: Chris Gauntlett may be leaning on the ropes, but it is with pride at what he has achieved, including being named 2016 Surrey Coach of the Year

INSPIRATION: Chris is teaching youngsters how to box in a joyful way FOR ANYONE: Chris is coaching people of all ages

February 2019

13www.swlondoner.co.uk

Gamers galore as FIFA 19 and Premier League come togetherESPORTS has seen an enor-mous rise in recent years, in almost every way – so much so even the Premier League has now got involved.

Be it players, viewers, rev-enue, live event attendances, and its celebrity factor, many estimates suggest esports will soon be one of the biggest sports in the world.

For example, Activate, a strategy consulting firm, fore-cast that by 2021 esports will be the second most viewed sport in America with 84 mil-lion viewers, behind only the NFL’s 141m.

Meanwhile, Newzoo, a glob-al provider of gaming and esports analytics, project the global esports audience will grow from its 335m figure in 2017 to 645m in 2022, and its revenue will grow from $655m (£502m) to $1.79b (£1.37b) in the same period. It is undoubt-edly the fastest growing sports industry, and the Premier League, the world’s biggest football league, is embracing its rise.

In January this year the ePremier League (ePL) was announced. The tournament, which will end on March 29, gives UK FIFA 19 players the opportunity to play FIFA for their favourite Premier League team. After a round of online qualifiers with hun-dreds of players, each Premier League team is now holding their playoffs, pitting the top 16 Xbox One and Playstation 4 players against one another, on their respective consoles, in a knockout tournament to decide the team’s finalists.

For Jarvis Denham, 19, the ePremier League is a golden opportunity.

He has just qualified as Ful-ham FC’s PS4 finalist and said: “I think it’s good because it gives the UK players who en-joy playing FIFA a chance to get their name out there. Obvi-ously you’ve got the pros from America, from Saudi Arabia and from the rest of the world who dominate the scene.

favourite and there was a pro called Hashtag Honey Badger. He was the favourite going in so people didn’t expect me to win, but I did!

“It’s been a really good event, and this will be the biggest platform I’ve ever played on.

There’s loads and loads of peo-ple who have Sky so I feel it’s going to be good for Sky and the FIFA community too.

“Football is the most popu-lar sport in the world. FIFA is just going to continue to grow and grow. When you’re 13 or 14 years old and you can’t par-ticipate in these tournaments until you’re 16, there are so many people wanting to do this so I can only see it going up. It’s always going to go up.

“The thing with FIFA, and Ultimate Team, is that if my favourite player is Neymar in real life, you are able to use him and enjoy it.

“I would say a good majori-ty of people in the world love football, so if you want to use your favourite players on FUT, you can. That gives everyone a reason to play FIFA.”

As Denham said, countries like the USA, Saudi Arabia, Japan and China dominate esports. The USA will gener-

ate $409m (£313m), 37%, of es-ports global 2019 revenue, and the Asia-Pacific region will ac-count for 57% of esports glob-al enthusiasts in 2019, all per Newzoo. However, Denham thinks the ePL presents the opportunity for UK esports to take a real leap forward as the industry grows.

“I’d say the UK level is fair-ly high, they just don’t have the chance to express them-selves, but this gives them that chance. I feel like, since I’ve been playing FIFA, the ePL is the best idea I’ve ever seen and I’m grateful for them for giving the UK people a chance to represent their favourite club and have a good time.”

As esports continues to boom, this partnership sig-nals the future relationship between esports and ‘real’ sports. For people like Den-ham, and teams like Xeno, it’s their opportunity to be at the forefront.

Fulham, live on Sky Sports’ and the Premier League’s so-cial media channels.

“Online qualifiers were good. I finished as the first seed, it was a good experience but the club playoffs were very good. Going into it I wasn’t the

You’ve got a chance for the UK people to have a say and repre-sent their club as well.

“I’m a Fulham fan, so it’s an honour and I want to be able to represent them the best I can in the ePL, I want to try to get to a good stage for them.

“I won’t say I’m nervous but I do put pressure on myself because I want to do well, I expect to do well. But it’s all about the experience. I want to experience it and I think it’s going to be really good.”

Until FIFA 17, and the in-troduction of FIFA Ultimate Team Champions (FUT Cham-pions), a competitive game mode with big player rewards, Denham had never gotten into competitive gaming. In fact, he’s only been playing FIFA for four or five years. Howev-er, it wasn’t until FIFA 19 this year that he really got onto the esports scene.

After reaching the Top 100 players in the world on FIFA 19’s FUT Champions, he was approached by Xeno Esports, a UK-based esports team who compete largely on FIFA. Af-ter joining Xeno about four months ago, Denham has been competing in European Esports Gaming tournaments and other online qualifiers, all while continuing his studies at Derby College.

“When I first joined Xeno, compared to now, it’s gone through the roof. And I only see it getting bigger as well. It’s a fairly new organisation so we’ve been trying to get our name out there as much as possible.

“It’s still a hobby for me. I’m still in education at college, but I am wanting gaming to be my main job. For me, my parents have always stood by what I wanted to do, which is play FIFA and try to get to this level.

“I spend about 4-5 hours a day gaming, at least I try to but I’ve always been able to balance it between going out, socialising, and getting my college work done. Always.”

Denham will now represent Fulham against the 19 other club’s finalists across May 28 and 29 at Gfinity’s Arena in

By Remy Cabache

WINNER: Jarvis Denham embraces Xbox One finalist Diogo Mendes after winning the club playoff (credit Fulhamfc.com)

NEW SWAG: Jarvis Denham shows off his medal and new Fulham jersey REPPIN’: ‘ITzJxrvis’ reps his Xeno Esports team

February 2019

14www.swlondoner.co.uk

London 2012 spirit alive as Titans grow strongerTHE golden glow of London 2012’s success was supposed to ‘inspire a generation’ but, nearly nine years on, this vi-sion has largely been proved a whimsical dream.

Austerity and the digital delights of the modern age has generally resulted in de-clining participation numbers and increasing facility clo-sures while a Sport England report in December revealed more than 30 per cent of Brit-ain’s young people do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day.

But, for all the problems, there exist some truly remark-able cases where sport initi-atives borne out of the 30th Olympiad have thrived.

Carshalton Titans is one such example.

After humble beginnings the south London handball club, possessing a men’s side and two youth teams, has en-joyed a period of rapid expan-sion which has culminated in a season of unbelievable suc-cess.

has made the difference.”A new committee has been

installed to compliment the Dane’s appointment and new secretary Joanne Damianou, Rob’s mother, has also praised the work of Thomas.

“He has put more structure in place. We’ve been training more regularly, keeping to times,” she said.

“Having a coach who’s got a lot of international experi-ence and a lot more drive, it’s really helped the players move along.”

Andersen’s arrival has brought an increased profes-sionalism to the outfit with all matches now streamed, as well as introducing features which have increased the com-munity feel within the club.

“He really has been an all-round saint,” club vice chair-man and player Liam McCar-thy said.

“He’s been responsible for our new website, our club shop and building up rapport with local media, he’s been re-ally good for us.”

Joanne added: “Thomas gets chocolates and sweets for the guys at half-time.

“Little things like this,

tournaments, the feeling re-mained that something was missing.

Enter Thomas Andersen.Hailing from Denmark and

with plenty of high-level ex-perience, Andersen became coach at the beginning of the 2018/19 season and has since led the Titans through to their greatest season to date, sitting top of the league with seven wins from seven.

Club welfare officer and player Jack Aguera said: “Things have really come together this season on the court and it’s mainly down to Thomas.

“His experience in coach-ing has helped us tactically and guidance to the younger squad members is already paying off.”

If Thomas’ work on the court has been impressive then his impact off it has been even more significant.

Rob said: “When I first joined the club the players were brilliant but not every-one was on the same page.

“There’s not been much change in the technical ability of the players, it’s more what’s happened off the court which

Indeed, Titans player Rob Damianou admitted they have never had it better.

“I’ve seen the club at its worst. I’ve seen it getting bet-ter and drop off again. Now things are at their best and staying at their best.”

Using the spotlight of Brit-ain’s maiden Olympic hand-ball appearance, with a team formed from a ‘Britain’s Got Talent-style’ application pro-cess, the Titans were formed when GB squad members cre-ated clubs to encourage the spread of the sport.

Mark Hawkins, who played left wing in 2012, alongside Carshalton Boys Sports Col-lege PE teacher Brendan Ear-ley, laid the foundations for what was to come.

Under their stewardship, and starting in the southern regional leagues, progression was measured for the men’s side until they sealed pro-motion to the second tier of national competition, the Na-tional Handball League South, in 2018.

Despite growth across all teams and the representation of several Carshalton youth players at international level

By Bradley West

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Carshalton Titans are enjoying unprecedented success both on and off the court with new coach Thomas Andersen having led an unbeaten league campaign so far

which probably weren’t too difficult to provide, are now making a big difference. He has brought a family feel.”

Carshalton Titans’ collec-tive spirit is best illustrated by how everyone involved in the club has routinely pitched in and non-playing squad mem-bers have travelled vast dis-tances just to cheer on or even photograph their teammates.

All this was needed, and more, in Carshalton’s biggest match of the season where they were narrowly defeated 35-30 by top-tier Warrington Wolves in the quarter-finals of the National Cup.

In a massive David vs Goli-ath encounter a hugely spirit-ed performance proved more important than the result.

Liam said: “We proved we belong on that level.

“Everyone’s starting to turn their heads now, people are starting to take us seriously.”

The journey does not stop there for the south London side. Finishing top of the league will put them in a play-off against the winners of the National League North with promotion to the Premier Handball League on the line.

Winning this match would bring huge benefits.

“I’m not scared of any teams up there,” added Liam.

“With more training and at-tracting more players by going up, we could maybe make a second team to play regionally.

“It’s been a long time com-ing. I’ve been wanting to play in the Premier League since I was 16 so for it to finally be flourishing, I can’t wait.”

Having been connected to an all-boys school for much of their existence, increased diversity is the next priority.

Joanne said: “Thomas has said, ‘okay we’ve got under 19s, we’ve got a men’s team, now we need some girls’.

“But we want to make sure we’ve got substance to keep our existing sides too while keeping that family feel so everyone feels involved no matter what their role is.”

In just seven short years the Titans have come from no-where to sit on the precipice of their biggest ever feat, us-ing the inspiration of 2012.

But there is plenty more growth to be had. As Joanne said: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

February 2019

15www.swlondoner.co.uk

Richmond to Singapore: How parkrun went globalBUSHY Park, in Richmond upon Thames, is the second largest of London’s Royal Parks and on Saturday Octo-ber 2 2004, 13 runners and five volunteers gathered there for the very first parkrun, a free, timed 5km run.

James Russell was one of those ‘pioneers’ and has since completed parkruns in Cape Town, when returning to South Africa on holiday, and in the inaugural parkrun Ger-many event in Leipzig.

The 47-year-old’s adventure began when he saw the oppor-tunity presented by organiser and fellow countryman Paul Sinton-Hewitt to rekindle fondness for something that had become second nature to him in his homeland.

“In South Africa our up-bringing was very different than here in the UK because we tend to spend a lot more time outside and so we devel-op a love for the outdoors,” he said.

“Paul wanted to start some-thing up similar to what we had experienced in South Af-rica, what were called time trials, which were a weekly 5km run.

“He saw this was an area that was lacking in the UK and decided to do something about it after losing his job and suf-fering an injury.

“He put out a flyer for the Bushy Park time trial and that was how it started.

“He was very dedicated to having one every week and slowly it grew into what it is today.”

That growth has amount-ed to a recorded five million members at the end of last year, with 1,700 free, weekly running events taking place in 23 countries ranging from Singapore to South Africa.

However, while it spread to Wimbledon Common in 2007 for the second parkrun and later Richmond, James ad-mits that no one expected the phenomenon to flourish quite like it has because of running clubs’ initial consternation.

“We never really expected it to become as big as it is now because it was difficult at the start, given that running clubs were concerned about their memberships and felt that we were taking runners away from their races,” he said.

“But in fact the opposite has occurred, because more peo-ple are getting active through running, so more people are going down to parkruns with a view to doing 10km races, half marathons and marathons.”

And while the 26.2 mile-run may be the end objective for some, James concedes the

“When it happened, the community was always there to support me and it was good to get out and grieve in a dif-ferent way,” he said.

“It is very hard to lose a spouse, so it was a very tough thing to get through. Obvi-ously I have my family but parkrun allowed me to create a social picture that really does help.

“My boys have done more than 300 parkruns each. They

absolutely love it, so I get that enjoyment from it.

“They’re thriving, they’re fit and healthy and they’re ad-dicted to exercise from such a young age and that gives me a buzz.”

Tour operators have also recognised the excitement that it generates, with com-panies such as Exodus begin-ning to incorporate parkruns in its worldwide adventure holiday packages.

It is a move that James sees as a enhancement providing they commit to upholding the community’s values.

“There are always people who try to make money out of a situation but as long as it is done with the right attitude I don’t see a problem,” he said.

“There are lots of runners who like to do the alphabet and go around the world com-pleting all the parkruns from A to Z as part of their holiday.

“That means it needs to be done by putting parkrun and its needs first.

“It needs to be all about inclusivity, interaction with society, meeting new people and making more friends and enjoying the area it is held in.

“As long as all these tour companies do it with the right intentions, I cannot see it be-ing a negative.”

While tour operators may represent the future of parkrun, to forget the roots of the phenomenon would be to significantly undermine how it has changed the lives of thousands of people like James over the years.

totally inclusive. You turn up, do your run and then you go for coffee afterwards and so-cialise and make new friends.”

And it was that social aspect that partly helped James to re-cover from the most painful moment of his life, the death of his wife Lana.

The couple had been togeth-er since 1991 and had two sons, 13-year-old Jaden and 11-year-old Evan, before she passed away six years ago.

physical aspect of the events is just one of the run’s compo-nents.

“What really caused it to take off here was the deter-mination of the people in the area who like to do sport and build a very active communi-ty,” he said.

“But it’s no longer just a run, it is a very social commu-nity now.

“You are getting so much more than the run from it, it is

By Kishan Vaghela

MAIDEN RUN: James Russell (second from left) takes part in the first ever parkrun in October 2004

FESTIVE: The 2005 edition of the annual Christmas Day run ALL GO: Bushy Park held the inaugural 2004 event

February 2019

16www.swlondoner.co.uk

“Esports can only grow if people are more aware” IT’S clear to see that esports is becoming more and more popular.

Nowhere can this be seen more than in the growth of professional esports teams, including London Esports, founded by Alfie Wright.

The team emerged victori-ous at the ESL Premiership CS:GO [Counter Strike: Glob-al Offensive] in the winter tournament and is looking to repeat the feat in the spring series.

He said: “If you look at the numbers of people watching live esports, it can reach num-bers like four football stadi-ums.

“Ten years ago, that would have been unthinkable, so imagine the power it will have in 20 years’ time.”

With his belief that esports will one day overtake the pop-ularity, engagement rate and variety of physical sport, Al-fie has staked his claim in this ever-growing online world.

He said: “People need to be educated better. Those who see esports as a negative thing don’t see the potential in it and they don’t understand it properly.

“Once people start accept-ing esports more and more, things will get better.”

The sheer breadth of games and competitions on offer ex-plains the challenges a player faces in this sport can be com-pared to those faced by prom-ising talents in other sports.

Some esports are based around real-life games. For ex-ample, FIFA is a football sim-ulator and people understand the rules very easily because they are the same as the phys-ical sport.

Counter-Strike or DotA, on the other hand, are not based on real-life scenarios so peo-ple don’t intuitively know how they work.

What’s more, the chances of becoming a successful esports player are smaller than in pos-sibly any other sport.

esports will, as a sport, make more than one billion dollars worth of revenue in 2019, a rate similar to many elite level physical sports.

That growth can be seen with the viral phenomenon Fortnite.

The free-to-play online

game fundamentally changed the way games makers offer and market their wares.

It is free to play, but in-game purchases mean the game grossed more than two billion dollars last year.

Fortnite helped the esports community show elite players at any game are a brilliant, marketable spectacle.

Youtube was awash with Fortnite videos, so much so that some popular content creators complained it was impossible to run a successful channel that doesn’t promi-nently feature that game.

It follows logically, as more people access consoles, more games provide internet acces-sibility and more prominence is given to esports, the sport can do little but grow at a rap-id rate.

And Alfie believes there is a potential for growth on a scale unlike any other sport has seen in the past.

“Most people have access to a console or a PC, most people play games on those consoles, and most of those games have an esports scene.”

This is no different to hav-ing arcade game tournaments but this has evolved into a world of daily, online, world-wide competitive gameplay.

The world is changing be-cause of the growing powers of social media and the in-ternet and sport is changing alongside it.

Organisations such as the Premier League and the Bun-desliga are embracing this side of the internet, despite facing problems elsewhere online.

This is what the competitive video game world has always been capable of.

Success is not new, but the potential for growth at a nev-er-before-seen rate is an en-tirely modern phenomenon.

have live streams on websites such as Youtube and Twitch.

It is not surprising when you consider that Youtube is owned by Google and Twitch by Amazon, that companies are realising the serious growth of the sport.

One research firm found

A casual player may rack up hundreds or thousands of hours playing their game of choice, whether in online competition or not, but will still pale in comparison to the hours put in by a professional.

Much like any sport, prac-tice is key but having a natu-ral ability is also important.

Alfie even thinks players are new-age celebrities.

He said “People connect to teams as much as they do to players, just like in other sports.

“If you have a favourite team, you can follow them across multiple games very easily.”

Having the best equipment makes it much harder than just needing a ball to kick or throw, but the rise in video game cafes is helping less for-tunate players even out the playing field.

Two pieces of news make optimistic reading for ama-teurs.

The largest Asian chain of video game cafes has opened a London centre and is looking to build four more across the UK shortly.

And Gfinity, a UK-based tournament host, opened the world’s first dedicated esports arena in Fulham in 2015.

While these things are help-ing, other occurrences are helping turn the balance back the other way.

Esports must naturally be fairly decentralised; there isn’t really a governing body to lay down the laws.

Teams of players need to ex-ist to play multiplayer games but whether the team lasts beyond the realm of esports is dependent on many different factors.

Whilst this decentralisation is beneficial for the prolifera-tion of tournaments and com-petition, it is likely a hinder-ance for players.

An amateur player may find it difficult to take part as a player, even though it is easier than any other sport to watch.

There are multiple concur-rent competitions and many

By David Saunders

CHAMPIONS: The London Esports team after winning the ESL Premiership CS:GO winter tournament in January

MONITORING THE SITUATION: Players engaged in online competition GAME ON: The London Esports team in action

February 2019 www.swlondoner.co.uk

Youth Cup winning Irons schooling new generationON FRIDAY May 14 1999, I Want It That Way was top of the charts, Google was eight months old and Jadon Sancho was a twinkle in the milk-man’s eye.

That same day West Ham won the FA Youth Cup by a record scoreline: 9-0 on ag-gregate against Coventry – a winning margin which still remains untouched since the competition began in 1953.

Lining up alongside Joe Cole at Upton Park was Sam Taylor, and 20 years later things have come full circle for the former team-mates on opposite sides of London.

While Cole is technical acad-emy coach for Chelsea and con-tinuing to study for his coach-ing qualifications, Taylor is football integration manager at the West Ham Foundation.

So many turned up to the final, kick-off was delayed by ten minutes and another stand was opened, and Taylor has fond memories of the 6-0 sec-ond-leg victory.

He said: “Back then, you’d be

Brayley coach at lower levels. Stephen Bywater still plays for Burton, Izzy Iriekpen was jailed in 2016 for glassing a bouncer, while others retired.

Under Taylor’s stewardship the Irons’ academy, set up al-most five years ago, has grown from 14 to 250 boys.

They deal with attendance and attitude as well as football and Taylor often works with boys who have problems at home or with gangs.

“We get them out of roads they might have gone down and show them a different path. It’s all the other stuff we upskill them in: becoming a young adult.”

With Cole admitting players more talented than him fell by the wayside due to non-foot-balling issues, he and Taylor are aiming to improve young players’ welfare.

Taylor said: “A big part of football now is the mental side.

“What the clubs offer a young academy player is sec-ond-to-none in terms of sup-port, advice and guidance. Hopefully the work we’re do-ing will solve issues we’re see-ing with players retiring now.”

ted the difficulty dealing with the mental side of injury.

“For a young player trying to grind out a professional career, it’s the last thing you want. There are more players than spaces: we had two or three fighting for the same spot. It’s dog-eat-dog.”

Taylor signalled the unique challenges of trialling.

“I’d never been in a situa-tion outside my comfort zone where you haven’t got your family. Stuck in hotel rooms, working under different coach-es and playing with people you don’t know.

“You think the opportunity will come back round, but I’ve never been able to take the step back up. Once you leave it’s re-ally hard to get back into full-time football.

“At Barking I played against Michael Black, who was at Tr-anmere – the year before he was playing in the Champions League for Arsenal.”

An illustration of the side’s diverging paths is their differ-ences in career fortunes.

Michael Carrick is coach-ing Manchester United, while Richard Garcia and Bertie

lucky if you got a few thousand at a game. We actually filled up Upton Park! Where we were sitting in the changing room, you could hear the turnstiles if you had the windows open. To see 21,000 there for that age group was fantastic.”

Midfield maestro Cole was invited to train with the senior England side by Kevin Keegan after the Hammers’ unprece-dented triumph.

But most of the other play-ers didn’t hit the same heights, and Taylor bounced around non-league with Barking and Bishop’s Stortford before retir-ing with Harlow after multiple injuries.

He reflected on the narrow margin between playing pro-fessionally and not.

“Whether you’re making it or getting released is based on someone’s opinion. Like in most jobs, some people like you and some don’t. There’s also a lot of luck involved – some players miss years of develop-ment with bad injuries.”

Taylor – who only came into the side at the quarter-final stage due to the starting left wing-back’s absence – admit-

By Max Mathews

VICTORIOUS: Sam Taylor (third from right, second row) celebrates winning the FA Youth Cup in 1999 with Michael Carrick (fourth from left, bottom row) and Joe Cole (above right from Carrick)

TRAINING: Sam Taylor (right) oversees an Academy session

TAYLOR-MADE: Taylor works with more than 250 youngsters

17

February 2019

18www.swlondoner.co.uk

Corinthian-Casuals are Budapest bound againTHESE days it is common-place for football clubs to swan off to all corners of the globe on money-spinning pre-season tours. Last summer Manches-ter United travelled to USA, Chelsea went to Australia and Arsenal played in Singapore. But have you heard the story of a club from Tolworth who revolutionised the game by go-ing to Budapest? This summer Corinthian-Cas-uals, in the seventh tier of English football, are planning to return to the city which re-ally put them on the map.

Corinthian was an amateur team that, in many people’s view, were the first ever ‘best club in the world’. Founded in 1882, they were famed for their sportsmanship and fair play. Such was the influence of the club they even inspired Real Madrid to wear white, and one of the biggest teams in Bra-zil, Corinthians Paulista, was named in their honour.

In 1904 they travelled to Bu-dapest in a quest to popularise football around the world. So enthused were they by the pas-sion from the locals that they gifted a trophy, the Corinthian Cup, to the amateur clubs of Hungary, and the cup compe-tition ran throughout the fol-lowing decades.

Nowadays the re-named Corinthian-Casuals, who play in the Isthmian Premier divi-sion, are not quite as success-ful, and attract only a couple of hundred fans on an average matchday. But after a series of coincidental events, they are now on the brink of returning to Hungary to re-live the days when the club was amongst the best in the world.

Dominic Bliss is a foot-ball journalist and Casuals fan who wrote a book about Hungarian manager Egri Erbstein, who was tragically killed in an aviation disaster. The book inspired some Hun-garian fans to re-form the club Erbstein had managed, Bu-dapest Atletic Klub, who had been out of business for more than 70 years.

Bliss was asked to be an am-bassador for the newly-formed club and to twin them with an English club. Amazingly, he discovered Corinthians had played BAK in the Corinthi-an Cup all those years ago. As BAK chairman Bertalan Mol-nar put it: “It’s a coincidence but I believe more in fate.”

Bliss and Casuals communi-ty director John Forrest went over to Budapest, plaques and shirts were exchanged, and a plan was drawn up to play a brand new edition of the Co-rinthian Cup over the sum-mer.

forgot their origins and where they came from, and the spirit of amateurism. I’m expecting huge media coverage for this event in Hungary and this is a tradition which could contin-ue for years.”

Forrest admits he was wor-ried about the cost of the trip at first, but is now thrilled that through fundraising and private donations the tourna-ment looks to be going ahead.

“Sport is inundated with

money, but we often overlook the fact that amateur sports are completely inclusive and anyone can get involved, and we really want to celebrate that,” he said.

“We’ve got an opportunity now to hopefully create an an-nual competition for amateur clubs – and what a marvellous thing that would be.”

The tournament will be named after Erbstein and will take place from June 15-16.

Four teams will take part and there will also be a blind foot-ball tournament taking place.

A large contingent of Cas-uals fans are also likely to make the trip to the Hungari-an capital, and Bliss believes the event is truly unique for non-professional sport.

“There was a time when football clubs were connected by the tours they did around Europe, but this is the first time for a long time that peo-ple have tried to get a tour-nament going for grassroots clubs,” he said.

“It will be great to see Cas-uals make history and retrace the steps of their great forefa-thers.”

In an age where we are all accustomed to heavyweight clashes between European titans, it is refreshing to see the smaller clubs getting their fair share of the limelight. There seems to be a real hope among those involved in the amatuer game that this could be the first step in a new rev-olution in non-league football.

the very highest level is every-where, it is increasingly diffi-cult for the stories of amateur clubs like these to get atten-tion. When they do do some-thing wonderful like this it is fascinating to see how much the public get behind it.”

Over in Hungary, BAK chairman Molnar is just as excited about the opportunity.

“There is no nobler team in football than Corinthian-Cas-uals,” he said. “They never

Being an amateur club hard-ly swimming in money, Casu-als started a GoFund me page with the aim to raise £8,500 to make the trip happen. Two weeks later they have already nearly reached their target.

So just why does this tour-nament mean so much?

“People see there’s a rich-ness and a depth to this story that goes back more than 100 years,” Bliss sa.

“In a world where football at

By Alex Milne

FRIENDSHIP: (From left to right) Football journalist Dominic Bliss, Casuals community director John Forrest and BAK chairman Bertalan Molnar met in Budapest

HISTORY: The tournament will evoke memories of past glories CONNECTED: A Casuals flag is displayed at BAK matches