We are a youthful charity that empowers young people through a shared love of sport. We help them develop the skills they are learning through playing sports and show them that these skills can be harnessed to create opportunities in their wider lives. Behind Every Kick initially piloted with a team of teenage footballers in Hackney, but we have since evolved to work with school and club sports teams across London.
The Behind Every Kick programme has been developed with Lane4, world- renowned experts in the field of human performance. Behind Every Kick was founded in 2016 by London entrepreneur David Pollock, a keen amateur footballer and long-standing advocate for young people.
Whether playing or following sport, I have been hugely influenced by the way sport has engendered me with an understanding of team spirit, the importance of focus, determination and practice and that making mistakes, is rarely a reflection of anything other than the human condition! Sports (and my sporting heroes) have inspired me to develop resilience and whether being part of a netball team, running a marathon or training and then practicing as a yoga and Pilates instructor, the skills I have developed along the way, have given me balance, as well as a healthy outlet (both physically and mentally) at each stage of my life.
The chance to be part of a team which at its heart, has the drive and energy to build a space in which we can walk the walk and talk the talk in empowering young people to understand and build on their strengths, find their potential and develop through ongoing opportunities, is quite simply golden! Not every day is a sunny day but, the belief and motivation of my colleagues and our supporters, makes every day a worthwhile one.
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I had the privilege of being Captain for many teams growing up, which has meant that I have developed a level of confidence in my ability - not only to perform, but to make a positive impression on people. Being a Captain has also enabled me - through being 'the middle man' for conversations between players and managers - to develop the art of effective listening and communicating well with different types of people. I believe these things are two key fundamentals to building strong, healthy and long standing relationships. I have gained a lot of my closest friends in life through playing sports and sharing experiences - whether it be happy or sad ones. I believe there is often a unique bond that’s created through shared experiences on the field, which I have had the luck of experiencing. This is why I have spent many years as a youth worker, trying to recreate those on field bonds through different vehicles, including photography, drama, music and many other things.
Fostering relationships leads nicely onto why I decided to join Behind Every Kick. I met Nick Brown in August 2019 and through our shared experience of a local football club, travelling, and a number of other things, Behind Every Kick popped up in so many conversations that it was extremely hard to ignore. My intrigue piqued. I discovered Behind Every Kick has developed a programme that combines three things I wholeheartedly believe in; sport, networking and mentoring. I believe the combination of these things can empower young people to broaden their horizons and give them various opportunities to become better people and grow - both on and off the pitch - which is something special that I just couldn’t say no to.
Woah, I don’t even know where to begin with this question! There are so many, I don’t know when the penny dropped and I realised in just how many ways sport mirrors life.. problem solving, teamwork, communication etc but when it did, I found myself making sporting analogies to describe everyday situations. Doing this helped me clarify my thoughts regards the situation I was in or, helped me explain things to other people.
I would also add, that it is not a one-way street as when I was younger, I had a fear of failure that held me back in many facets of my life. It was actually through travelling that I learned to overcome this fear and once I did, my performances on the field of play significantly improved, as did my confidence. I turned from a meek and mild Goalkeeper to one who doesn’t shut up. (I’m not sure that everyone appreciates that change in me!) That increased confidence, then spread to other parts of my life… so actually it isn’t even a two-way street, it is some sort of circle thing… a roundabout?
Ever since I got started coaching in Sydney in 2008, I believed that developing the person was just as important, if not even more important, than developing the player. In the 10 years that followed, I spent my time on and away from the pitch trying to find a way to really use sport as way to develop life skills in people… particularly in young people who were approaching the time in their lives when they were being forced to make potentially life changing decisions.
When I finally knew what I wanted to do, the question of how I was going to achieve it was a riddle that left me constantly stumped… then I was introduced to Behind Every Kick. We shared the same beliefs about the power of sport and had similar visions but, a key difference, was that they had the expertise and resources in place to make it a reality. They also appeared to live and breathe the culture they espoused. As result my club, Sporting Hackney, become the pilot team of the project and I spent 2 years volunteering with the project. When the opportunity came to turn my voluntary role into joining the executive in a full-time basis ... it was possibly the easiest decision of my life.
The openness to being coached in football, definitely helped me to have an open mind and a willingness to learn off the field too. The other is leadership and determination. When the team goes 2 goals (and that happened a lot!) the combination of everyone pulling in the same direction and encouraging each other to turn it around. The other lesson is about transferable mindsets. Positive language, act 'as if…', start again, controlling my hulk etc also apply every day in what I do.
A whole host of reasons: the selfish ones include, love of sport, love of the benefits of a positive outlook, love of mentoring, love of building something meaningful and useful. The unselfish ones include, guilt about why I should have had the opportunity and someone else hasn’t, guilt about the imbalances of society and concern for the welfare and growth of our younger generation.
Sport has certainly shaped me as a person and continues to do so now. The coaches who supported me as a youngster, enabled me to make the most of my potential, offering me life lessons that went far beyond the boundary edge. Performing under pressure, communicating with others from different walks of life and travelling the world doing something I love - these are all opportunities that have been made available to me because of sport and my application of the skills that sport allowed me to develop.
For all of the reasons above and then some. I believe that all young people could benefit from having access to sporting opportunities that have the potential to shape them for the better. By empowering them to make informed decisions, we can support our young people to become better sports performers, as well as better people. I believe in Behind Every Kick and the impact that it can have. By offering the care and guidance that might otherwise be absent from a young person’s life, I trust that we can help to transform people's’ lives - as well as their communities - ensuring that potential is allowed to flourish.
I always loved sport as a child and played team sport regularly until I left University. Apart from the obvious benefits at the time of being great fun and helping to keep fit and healthy, sport has taught me the importance of team work, commitment and determination. You’re never going to win all the time in any sport, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be successful, you just need to learn to bounce back and try again, and the same goes for all other areas of life. A sense of resilience and knowing you will reap rewards the more effort and practice you put in are essential mindsets that have helped me achieve my goals.
I see from my own children how much confidence and enjoyment they get from sport, and as they get older I hope they will continue to participate in a variety of sports and will start to appreciate what other skills they are learning and what opportunities this gives them. Behind Every Kick’s commitment to opening up these opportunities to more young people and helping them understand how they can use the skills they have obtained through sport to develop other areas of their lives, is such a compelling objective when you know the benefits that sport can bring. As a young charity it is a really exciting time for Behind Every Kick and with such a great mission and passionate team I didn’t have to think twice about getting involved.
In sport, you win and lose. When you lose, as I do a lot, you dust yourself down, don’t fret about the mistakes; learn from them; focus on the positives and try and improve. There is no point feeling sorry for yourself. There’s another battle just round the corner and you have to be up for that battle.
Being a team player is so important. If each member of the team performs his/her role to the best of his / her ability, then the team has a better chance of success. Supporting and encouraging your teammates leads to a better team performance.
I have recently changed my working hours so have more time to devote to charitable activities. I am passionate about sport and passionate about equality and fairness and creating opportunities for those who may not have all the right connections.
I hope to be able to introduce BEK to companies and organisations who share the same values. They can give valuable opportunities to BEK’s students and graduates and get so much back themselves from giving those opportunities.
I believe that sport and football in particular has a unique ability to bring people from all different socioeconomic backgrounds together and subsequently, can have a tremendously positive impact on people’s lives. I have witnessed this first hand through my involvement with grass roots football originally as a player, but especially during the last 7 years as a club secretary and manager of a grassroots football team.
I have been incredibly impressed with every young man and a lot of the volunteer coaches that I have met during the last seven years that I have spent helping to run an inner-city grass roots football club. What has disappointed me though, is the total lack of government funding for these local institutions which provide such an important service to their communities and I believe that BEK, without any help from local government, is providing an important additional programme to these clubs for their youth that otherwise simply would not be available.
We don't have any vacancies at the moment, but when we do they'll be posted here.
Our partner relationships make us immensely proud and grateful. All of our partners have generously provided us with invaluable support, advice and pro bono activity without which, we wouldn’t have been able to testbed our programme and create the dynamic organisation we have today.
They have been pivotal to keeping core operational costs to a minimum, allowing funding raised thus far, to be focussed mainly on the development of the core programme.
All our partners are very much part of the BEK team and they take pride in raising BEK’s profile both within their business and to their client base.
