The Canary-sponsored football club defying all odds

I fucking hate football. Overpaid players, over-the-top glamour and an industry detached from its local roots – a major turnoff. To me, football feels like a soulless corporate product, carried out by lads who couldn’t even point to their team’s hometown on a map.

But then on 24 February, I went to Swindon to see Great Western FC. I expected the same spectacle, but instead, I found myself part of a warming community experience. Without warning, football brought together strangers as friends.

Great Western FC is the club the Canary sponsors. Why you might be thinking? It much more than a football squad – it’s a vital support network for the men the state has abandoned. They hail from a town whose social fabric has been shredded by government negligence. For it’s players, the club, and pitch, are their sanctuary. While our government manages our social decline, the lads I met are busy saving one another.

Sanctuary from the streets

Standing on the touchline, these players have defied the very system that failed them. Great Western FC is the only thing standing between them and a prison cell. Or worse, a fucking morgue.

One player, fierce on the pitch, was caught up in gang violence. Before he found the club, his life was defined by poor decisions, including shotgun related incidents. Another lad told me how he’d been shot in the foot and stabbed before. Speaking to them, I saw how football had changed their lives; one sees courteous young men – some of loveliest lads.

And that’s the fucking point. These lads aren’t bad people. When our state shutters community centres and youth services, bad behaviour fills that vacuum and struggling lads turn to crime. Research shows that for every £1 we save by closing youth clubs, the taxpayer coughs up £3 in societal damage.

Watching the ‘shotgun lad’ weaving through the crowd with such ease, celebrating with his team mates, I felt something about a team I haven’t felt in years – genuine interest. And it is so hard not to like Great Western FC when you see the pastoral care they invest in their players. They nurture raw talent that our state lets rot every single day. At Great Western, that potential is reclaimed and put to outstanding use, all through football.

Processing emotions through the game

The trauma on the pitch isn’t always physical. One 17-year-old player lost his best friend to a hit and run driver and Great Western FC helped with his healing journey. Rather than sinking deeper into grief, he found solace in a group of rowdy lads and a game he loves – football offering him hope.

In a country where suicide is the leading cause of death in men under the age of 50, community-driven care can save lives. Men are three times more likely than women to die of suicide, with those living in deprived areas being twice as likely to take their own lives.

For this teenager, that 90 minutes on the pitch provides therapy not even the NHS can offer – least not in its current state. Research shows that men often reject the clinical, “sitting-on-a-sofa” kind of therapy, but thrive in community-led environments.

Every goal I witnessed, celebrated with raw emotion, was a moment when the silent struggles of these working-class men were finally given a voice, thanks to football.

Fuck the egos

The atmosphere on the pitch was riveting. The lads were laughing and playfully shoving each other. But don’t get me wrong, there was no messing around on that pitch. The second those lads were told it was time to play, they all snapped into focus.

The owners have worked tirelessly to eliminate the ‘bully’ culture common in sports. They have tried to cultivate a family atmosphere and have fucking succeeded. There were no egos on that pitch, none whatsoever.  What I saw was a variety of skill levels in these young men. The stronger players didn’t ridicule those who weren’t as good, instead choosing to encourage one another to keep pushing.

When the final whistle blew, this “family” didn’t just disappear into the night. They stayed and tidied up the pitch together. I watched as they hopped over fences and into the night to find stray balls they had lost. And there wasn’t a sense of “that’s not my job.” In a community that has been stripped of so much, they protect what they have, and football is at the heart of those bonds.

The meaning of a working class family

This solidarity goes so much further than the pitch. Walking through the car park, the reality of working class mutual aid was on show in full force. Every single vehicle I saw was crammed to the brim as players shared lifts, splitting the cost to ensure every player could make it to the football game.

The Canary chose to sponsor this team because we believe in this kind of solidarity to our core. We didn’t just put our name on a (very stylish) shirt. The Canary is investing in a community that refuses to let its young men fall behind.

Great Western FC is the true meaning of “working class.” They are united by the trials and tribulations they’ve lived, beyond the pitch. In the professional leagues, “local” clubs are just massive global corporations. At Great Western FC, the communal, collectivist spirit is real and it provides a lifeline for  many young men, with football at its core.

They don’t have private jets or glamour. They have each other and a dark pitch with a broken floodlight. And what I’ve found to love about the game of football is embodied by Great Western FC – community, solidarity and mutual aid and nothing less.

Featured image via Great Western FC