Union football team put the boot into racism

Charity football match played against Preston United

Talented footballers from UCLan took on local side Preston United to help promote the Kick It Out campaign, to eliminate racism from football. 

A Union side included a mixture of football team players and staff including the coach of UCLan’s Football 1st team, Adam Shilcock and the Student Union’s Activities and Participations Officer, Tom Bailey. 

It was Bailey, Captain for the day who put fired UCLan into an early lead after a great ball by Jack Mawdsley on the right wing.  Preston United soon equalised but a Jordan Butler penalty saw UCLan retake the lead. A third goal from Yusuf Kaffo, after another Mawdsley cross put UCLan 3-1 up.  

A penalty was easily converted by Preston United’s player/manager, Omar Kahn, to pull a goal back but a Hussain Master goal for UCLan killed the game off for a 4-2 victory.  The match was just one of many activities taking place nationwide as part of the Kick It Out campaign, football’s equality and inclusion campaign against racism. 

Afterwards Bailey said: "With football nowadays, there is a lot of racism. This is a worldwide problem. Starting small will have big consequences in my opinion." 

Preston North End community department also showed their support towards the event and in particular the Kick it Out campaign by donating 30 tickets for all participants to attend the Preston North End v Derby County game due to take place on the 8th December.

The match at Preston Sports Arena also helped promote new plans for football and community work within the University. Other exciting plans include the chance for students to get involved with community work including coaching some of Preston United’s football teams including their Under 10s and 13s squads. The club’s manager, Omar Kahn has helped many young people throughout the area and has called for students to get involved. 

Kahn who also works as a community officer said: "I’ve been working for 9-10 years and we’ve stopped a lot of young people from getting involved in the wrong stuff. It’s really important they get disciplined. 

"It’s important students realise that in the economic downturn, people will be looking for more voluntary opportunities," Kahn added, "the more volunteering, the more young people we can get involved. It’s about mentoring young people and developing a young person’s life. With more volunteering on board, more people throughout the area will have the opportunity to take part in football and other initiatives."

Participation was very much the hot-topic with plans for an 11-a-side inter-university football tournament being discussed. It is also hoped that the plans will include other sports (see page 14). 

Bailey said: "Obviously we hope to increase participation. It will help make new friends and getting people involved and giving people a chance to do things they wouldn’t necessary choose to do." 

Those who are interested are asked to contact Kahn, from Preston United at prestonunited@yahoo.co.uk with other voluntary opportunities available from The Bridge.

Report by Dan Birch

04 November 2009