Match of the day
Son’s video was shared around the world
Excitement and scarves out at Cause HQ as the footie season kicks off again. We’re a hotch-potch of supporters; Lioness fans, Bristol City*, Everton and Liverpool faithful, Teresa’s an advisory board member at Fulham For All and we have one rogue membership of Brentford FC.
We all agree that the beautiful game has the power to change lives.
One of Cause’s first projects was to find bone marrow donors in the Korean community for two-year-old Ally Kim. His wonderful family needed to find a donor if he was to survive a rare genetic condition.
Asked to raise awareness of Ally’s plight and the fact that the Korean community had low numbers of donor registrations, we went straight to the most famous South Korean person in the UK at the time, Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-min.
Son generously gave his time to film two appeals for us, asking his fellow Koreans to register as donors, one in English, the second in his native tongue. Our editor, Simon London, a Spurs fan, spliced Son’s words with footage of two-year-old Ally playing football on his Great Ormond Street Hospital ward, tubes attached to his face.
Because the Korean international kindly posted the videos on his own social media they went viral with hundreds of thousands of viewers in the UK and millions across Asia. The appeal featured on South Korean TV and global registration numbers shot up.
Ally at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital
We’ll never know if it was Son’s appeal that meant a donor match was found for little Ally but his family received the best Christmas present ever that year when someone came forward.
We do know the boy whose immune system was perilously weak is now not only playing football himself after his successful bone marrow transplant, but he is winning player of the match awards.
Son moved from North London to Los Angeles FC this summer, but there will always be a place in our hearts for him at Cause.
As Lioness fans and because of our close links with autism and ADHD charities we were fascinated by a recent Today programme interview with England Euros heroine Lucy Bronze.
Lucy, an ambassador for the National Autistic Society, explained why she believes her neurodivergence gives her the focus required to be a top athlete. What particularly interested us was the sports reporter talked about “masking” without explaining what it is - copying “accepted” behaviour and social codes. It signalled to us that the public has come a long way in its understanding of neurodivergence when a journalist on a flagship BBC news show can assume that level of knowledge from his audience. We’ll celebrate that as hard as we celebrated the Lionesses’ Euros win.
Football Beyond Borders launch of the The Lost Boys Taskforce
Over the summer we noticed the work Paul Barber, CEO at Brighton and Hove Albion, and Ceylon Hickman of Football Beyond Borders are doing with the Lost Boys Taskforce. This is a coalition of leaders from football, education, youth work, policy, and business, united by a bold ambition to make the UK a country where every young person has access to a trusted adult. We are delighted that our clients Jamie’s Farm and OnSide national youth charity are involved. Legend Sir Gareth Southgate has also been liaising with OnSide to look at how to motivate young people in a world of social media. What brilliant ways to harness the power of the game.
Thomas Frank on the High Performance podcast
And finally, good luck to former Brentford coach Thomas Frank who has cross London to manage Spurs. He might not have bagged a trophy in their match against titans of Europe PSG last night but we have a soft spot for the Dane and his style of management.
Brentford FC are known for their focus on data to outplay richer, more talent-packed clubs. But Thomas recently told Jake Humphrey ’s High Performance podcast: “Data is important but culture beats everything - passion, attitude and hard work. People create that culture, surround yourself by a good team and … (you can instill the belief) …you can go to the Ethiad and beat Manchester City.”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
*Teresa would like to point out Bristol City beat Sheffield United 4-1 in their opening game of the season.