Sheldon's Story

Covid is a good place for my story to start. In 2019, two years after I joined Coin Street as a sports coach, lockdown brought about the closure of our facilities, holiday camps, football and everything in between.  

When lockdown restrictions began to lift, we were faced with a challenge. The children in the local area were struggling with isolation and it was taking them a while to get back into sports. 

There was a low uptake for our sessions and several children stopped playing all together. In response to this, I decided to create the SL90 football foundation. 

This was my way of trying to get the kids back involved in sports, especially football, and help reignite their love for exercise and the outdoors.  

Alongside SL90, I was still working with Coin Street where we were faced with another challenge - local children breaking into the Colombo pitches. 

Initially, there was talk of hiring a security guard to protect the pitches, but these children were from the local area and just wanted to play, so I had another idea. I suggested monitoring the pitches myself, but instead of guarding them, putting on football sessions. 

This idea was piloted for about six to seven months, and it was a great success, with numbers increasing by the week. Due to the success of this, I came up with another idea, which was to create a football programme that utilised the Colombo Centre gym. 

I had just qualified to become a personal trainer and wanted to create gym sessions that were football specific, so kids could enhance their performance levels off the pitch to benefit them when they got back on. 

We presented the idea to Southwark Council and received two years of funding for our programme from their Positive Future For Young People Fund. As well as coaching and gym sessions, we used the money to take the children on stadium tours and to matches at Wembley and West Ham. 

Since Covid, the number of children using our facilities is continuously increasing and it’s great to see so many young people back enjoying sports. SL90 now works in conjunction with Coin Street to provide the football and gym related activities. 

Since April 2022, we’ve had over 4,550 football and gym visits from over 160 children.  

Some of those we coach have even gone on to play for Crystal Palace and non-league football clubs. It’s not just success on the pitch we’ve seen but the development of children in other aspects of their life.  

Some have gone to university, full-time jobs, coaching courses and much more. We’ve helped them with working on their CV and their own personal skills, the impact has been huge. 

We have conversations with children to see what their future aspects are and some of them want to become lawyers, work within sports, physiotherapy, etc. They’ve also been able to create new friends and socialise away from the Xbox and PlayStation. 

For me, it’s amazing to see my passion come to life. Coaching has always been a dream of mine if I didn’t make it in football.  

We have since received another two years funding from Southwark Council and continue to inspire more young people.

This passion was truly ignited when I ran a voluntary programme in Malawi. Here I ran a football camp for two weeks, 300 children attended from three different villages. 

After the completion of this, I felt a sense of purpose when I came back home and was determined to give something back to the community. That’s why I created the SL90 foundation and work with Coin Street. 

I would encourage all children in the local area to come down. Everyone that plays will sign a player code of conduct and through that we try and build a family.  

The kids can approach myself and other coaches and are able to have conversations that they may find difficult to have with their parents. It’s also down to me to encourage them to chase their goals and dreams.  

The possibilities outside of their house are endless. If we have kids who struggle with anxiety or nerves, this tends to improve following gym sessions as they feel so much better because they've accomplished something and released a bunch of endorphins.  

They get a sense of achievement, build their confidence and self-esteem and that’s why I call it a holistic football/gym programme.  

Lots of the kids we coach are from tough areas with lots of barriers and from the most vulnerable sides of London. We can change the script and narrative around how young kids are perceived in the news and in the media, utilising this football programme to make them great members of society.