Help the team get into the Scottish Unity League!
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/19496754.uws-student-helps-kit-glasgow-refugee-football-team/ Hi, I'm Adam Paterson, a voluntary worker with the charity Positive Action in Housing. It was through my work that I met several of the young men that were victims in the Park Inn Hotel incident in Glasgow June 26th 2020. From the first day I met them, it was clear that they loved football, but it wasn't until the 1 year anniversary of the Park Inn Hotel incident that discussions began about forming a team to compete in the 24 team Euros style Refugee Festival Tournament on the 8th August in the Toryglen area of Glasgow. The players decided to call the team the 'Dream Team', and so the hunt for football kit and boots began...
I received lots of donations of old pairs of boots and kit from people around Glasgow, and also reached out to the charity foundations of Glasgow's professional teams. The Rangers Charity Foundation donated brand new training kit for the team - https://www.rangerscharity.org.uk/news/rangers-charity-foundation-donates-kit-to-refugee-dream-team
My younger cousin saw the social media posts requesting donations and spoke to her boss at Rival Kit, a Scottish sportswear company based in Edinburgh, who generously offered to design and manufacture a custom football strip for the Dream Team!
With the help of the Scottish Refugee Council, other charitable organisations and community-based groups were asked if they would like to enter teams into the tournament on the 8th August.
Within a matter of weeks six teams had been confirmed, and I decided to try and secure sponsorship in order for all 6 teams to get custom football strips made by Rival Kit for the tournament.
Rival Kit again went above and beyond, offering to make full strips for all 6 teams at cost price!
BBC Scotland were informed about the team and wanted to cover the story, which appeared on BBC Reporting Scotland (July 17th 2021) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78T15uF0O6o&t=73s
BBC story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09pdw31
The Insurance Helpline, having provided sponsorship to other community projects in the past, were excited to provide sponsorship for the community teams to have their strips designed and manufactured - https://www.theinsurancehelpline.org.uk/about/about-us/#sponsorship
The players who receive Home Office support, have less than £5.70 per day to live on.
To put that into perspective, an all day bus pass costs £4.60. Every time the players are required to travel to training at Firhill complex from their respective homes, which are spread out across the city as far as Milton, Easterhouse and Tollcross, they are forced to use most of their daily allowance, leaving them virtually nothing for food, water, and other living essentials.
I am determined that this team continues to meet, train, socialise, and bond beyond the tournament on the 8th of August, and that's where you come in!
I aim to raise the funds needed to enter the Dream Team into the Scottish Unity Football League, where the players could attend bi-weekly training sessions run by volunteer coaches, and play in competitive league games every Sunday.
Scottish Unity Football League - https://scottishunityleague.leaguerepublic.com/index.html
This is about far more than 10 young men that love playing football, it's about empowering them with ownership of their own team. Thanks to the 'hostile environment' policy of the UK government, there are precious few areas of these young men's lives that they have control over. Being involved with the team grants them a degree of agency and ownership of something that they can call their own.
Scottish Refugee Council - https://www.scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/the-beautiful-game-bringing-communities-together/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-beautiful-game-bringing-communities-together
Positive Action in Housing - https://www.paih.org/positive-action-in-housings-football-team-to-enter-refugee-tournament-in-august/
Rival Kit - https://rivalkit.com/
