The use of football to tackle youth unemployment at Street League in 14 British cities is yielding spectacular results. Jose Mourinho hailed the charity as “an amazing project”. Danny O’Donnell, 18, hails from the Govan district of Glasgow. The area will be known to many football enthusiasts as the birthplace of Sir Alex Ferguson, and for forging the values that shaped his glittering career.
“It’s where I learned the value of hard graft, resolve and resilience,” Ferguson has said. Much, though, has changed since the days when Sir Alex grew up in the shadow of the giant shipbuilding cranes scattered along the city’s River Clyde. Back then, even before he made his name as a footballer, the teenage Ferguson had found a secure and well paid job, signing up to a five-year tool-making apprenticeship in a local factory employing over 1500 staff.
The subsequent decline in traditional industries has left Govan’s youth of today facing a very different outlook. As Danny explained to FIFA.com: “I’ve been unemployed now for a few months and thinking, ‘What do I do next?’ Because I’ve been applying for jobs every day and getting nowhere.
“It can get you down; you start worrying you might not get anywhere in life. You leave school having done the best you possibly can and think, ‘I’m going to go far’. But it’s not like the old days, when you could just walk in somewhere and get a job. It’s much harder now, and it’s upsetting, pushing yourself to the max and not getting anywhere.” Danny’s experience is far from unique.
Almost 40 per cent of jobless people in the UK are aged 25 or under, and the youth unemployment rate in Glasgow is even higher than the national average. But while Danny provided a bleak picture of his time searching fruitlessly for a job, he was upbeat and ambitious when conversation turned to his future. The reason is that he is one of thousands of young people across the UK benefiting from a sport for employment charity with football at its heart.
