Things the football training manual never taught you… how to proceed when your centre forward disappears up a tree and won’t come down

It never ceases to amaze me how you can live somewhere for nearly thirty years and still have no idea about half the things which happen in your own neighbourhood. I was invited to Brentford FC Community Sport Trust’s anniversary bash at Watermans last Tuesday, celebrating 30 years of engaging young people and providing support for disadvantaged groups through sport and education in West London. We heard from the chairman and a sponsor and the CEO Lee Doyle, and impressive though all the talk of social inclusion and community cohesion was, I confess that my thoughts were turning toward supper until up popped Samantha Silver, a very calm, self-possessed middle aged woman who had the room spellbound as she described how, as a group of parents in Richmond, they had tried and failed to introduce their autistic children to the joys of team sport.

She approached the trust, who took on the challenge. On their first meeting the coach brought a sack of balls and laid out cones for the kids to weave in and out of. One child promptly disappeared up a tree while her own son carefully collected up all the cones into a nicely ordered pile. The default position for an autistic child when faced with the anxiety of something as socially daunting as team sport is apparently to lie on the ground with their arms over their head in a foetal position. Even the most dedicated, specially trained coach, as theirs was, might have been forgiven for having second thoughts. He didn’t. She described how slowly over the years the children, now young people, have gained in confidence, to the point where they actively enjoy the sessions. She explained also how the training had affected their behaviour at home and taught the parents a thing or two which had contributed to a calmer, more positive atmosphere both at home and at school. She also told me afterwards how, heartbreakingly, while this works with younger children, by the time they get to secondary school their anxiety is too great to overcome with this sort of coaching. The trick is to get to the children young. The good news is that her charity Action Attainment, which runs the On the Ball scheme, has just got funding to extend their project from Richmond into the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. For details of Action Attainment go to www.action-attainment.com

Reading the brochure with renewed enthusiasm after hearing her speak, I can tell you that Brentford FC Community Sport Trust is one of the leading community organisations linked to a professional football club. It employs 100 staff and volunteers and ‘has evolved into an award winning, innovative charity that uses the power of sport to engage its community in positive activity’. In 2015/16, over 11,000 participants engaged with the Trust through its broad range of programmes.