Showing Racism the Red Card at BWFC
Bolton Wanderers in the Community and Show Racism the Red Card joined forces to welcome 900 young people from across Bolton to the Toughsheet Community Stadium. The workshops ran from Monday 31st March – Friday 4th April engaging with schools in an interactive and fun way to start conversations surrounding racism, stereotypes and hate-crime.
Bolton Wanderers in the Community are proud to work with Show Racism the Red Card to put on the largest event of its type that the leading anti-racism educational charity has done alongside a football club. Young People from across Bolton took part in workshops learning about hate crime, racism and stereotyping in a safe and judgement free environment allowing them to learn and challenge. They were then invited on a stadium tour of the Toughsheet Community Stadium before reconvening in the afternoon for a panel with special guests from across the BWFC and local organisations. The students were given the opportunity to ask questions to the panel on things they had learnt over the day, asking the panel their lived experience and advice on how to challenge racism and hate crimes in their daily life.
Over the week we had appearances from BWFC COO Phil Mason, BWFC First Team Players Jordi Osei-Tutu, Jay Matete and Josh Dacres-Cogley, BWFC Assistant Head Coach Richie Kyle, BWWFC First Team Players Annabelle White, Emily Culshaw, Eleanor Seals, Ocean Flanagan, Millie Smith, Hannah Baldwin and Lacey Taylor and BWWFC Manager Myles Smith who all joined us to sit on a panels to answer questions from the students.
We would like to thank Frank Sinclair, Viv Anderson, Beth Warriner and Ibrahim Ismail who joined our panel to answer questions about their own lived experiences and provide advice for the young people on topics they have learnt. BWitC are proud to work with organisations such as Show Racism the Red Card to present a range of positive role models for young people across Bolton. We would also like to thank BWFC Chairman, Sharon Brittan, who attended our session on Wednesday 2nd April to speak with students and staff about the event.
Joe Conway, BWitC’s Premier League Primary Stars Project Officer, reflected on the event “Working with organisations such as Show Racism the Red Card to bring 900 young people from across Bolton together here at the stadium shows the power these partnerships can have. We would like to thank everyone that supported our event to make this a fun, engaging and impactful event for our community. Events such as these shows how the power of football can positively impact young people and support cohesion across our community”
The Premier League Primary Stars programme has reached over 19,000 schools and more than 70,000 teachers since 2017, reaching around 1.3 million pupils in the 2023-24 academic year alone. At the heart of the Premier League Primary Stars programme is a commitment to empowering teachers and inspiring pupils. Premier League Primary Stars offers every primary school in England and Wales over 650 free curriculum-linked resources across subjects like PE, PSHE, English, and Maths.
For more information on Premier League Primary Stars and how we can support your school delivery please contact Joe at jconway@bwitc.org.uk