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from left: Zinuk Ahmed, Rubel Amir, Ishrak Ali, Abdul Nasir, Ashley McLure, back, from left: Martin Nwabunor, Chi Wing Chan and Naim Khan |
Pitch battle as footballers plead: ‘Give us extra time’
THE Book of Grievances was filled this week with pleas by concerned youngsters desperate to save their football tournaments.
The Book – a chance for Camden’s youth to have a say on issues that really matter to them – is a campaign supported by the New Journal. Forms filled out by youngsters detailing their hopes and grouses will be handed to Town Hall politicians later this year.
This week’s Book of Grievances appeals are on behalf of 400 youths who could lose out if two football projects are scrapped.
Charity-funded Fitzrovia Youth In Action (FYIA) has used the Warren football pitch in Whitfield Street for about 10 years. The young footballers play from 7pm to 9pm, when the pitch is locked up.
The council has been warned that if it permanently closes the pitch 90 minutes earlier about 150 youngsters from the area could be forced onto the streets.
Zinuk Ahmed, 16, was angered by reports in the New Journal last week that three senior council officials earn more than £100,000. He said: “They get £150,000 a year and they can’t keep the pitch open for an extra hour. It’s disgusting.”
FYIA had no warning about the changes, and only found out on Friday, the day they came into action.
Meanwhile, a football tournament at Coram’s Fields in Bloomsbury is also facing the axe.
Youth worker Naz Deen set up the Football Central Project six months ago when he won sponsorship from Waitrose supermarket. About 200 youths will be affected if no new backers come forward to sponsor the project in April.
Mr Deen said: “We had loads of complaints from residents saying young people were hanging around and causing trouble. We wanted to give them something constructive to do.”
Nuno Sani, 16, from Chalk Farm, said: “I’d like to see more cup competitions like this. If we lose our sponsorship it means all the time we’re spending here we’ll end up on the streets.”
Meanwhile, two DJs have decided to reach out to youngsters through a pirate-style radio station.
Daniel Cunningham, 22, a former William Ellis School student, hopes to start up the station after noticing that youths were more influenced by pirates than mainstream radio. He said: “A lot of pirate radio is listened to by kids. They don’t listen to legal radio. It would be good to do a legal radio station in a pirate form.”
Mr Cunningham, who hopes to become a youth worker, wants to use the airwaves to launch campaigns against violence and gun crime, and to involve younger people in neighbourhood watch schemes.
He said: “There are a lot of kids that are not really relating to much but the streets. Music’s a good way of relating everyone. I’d like kids to have a say and do something with their lives, and not just hang out in the street, getting killed, shooting and stabbing each other.”
He and his DJ partner Mark Webster, 19, are starting DJ classes in April. Book of Grievances questionnaires will be circulated at the DJ sessions, which will be staged at Thanet youth club in Herbert Street and Castlehaven community centre in Castlehaven Road. |
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