Meeting People
Franklin Shillingford: Role models, youthwork, gentrification, Hackney's future
In my first episode, Simon Evan-Cook made a prediction that the effects of cuts to social services made years ago will start to manifest themselves with higher crime rates in the coming decade. This latest conversation with Franklin Shillingford gave me faith that there are people on the front line working tirelessly to address this. Frank is Club Leader at Crown & Manor which is situated in Hackney. His team provides much needed mentorship, stability, safety, and real-world skills to the borough’s youth most in need of positive role models.
I’ve been reading Henry George of late (watch this space). He argues that economic progress brings its own type of poverty which is masked by gentrification and nowhere is this more the case than Hackney. Having grown up in Stoke Newington Frank has dedicated many years of his life in unglamorous service to youth work. Our conversation woke-me up to challenges facing society today and I heard some of the most moving stories of potential being unlocked in kids. Potential that would remain hidden were it not for the work of under-resourced leaders.
It’s rare to meet people who have soul in the game, particularly when the domain is as emotionally testing and unremunerative as youth work. For the rest-of us - out of sight – out of mind is an MO we are all guilty of employing. My conversation with Frank reminded me that we all have a responsibility to the next generation but also gave me hope through tangible case studies that if we dedicate a small amount of our bandwidth to charities such as the Crown and Manor Club life changing benefits can be reaped. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as we did in making it.
You can find more information on the Crown and Manor Club here: https://www.crownandmanor.org.uk/.
In my first episode, Simon Evan-Cook made a prediction that the effects of cuts to social services made years ago will start to manifest themselves with higher crime rates in the coming decade. This latest conversation with Franklin Shillingford gave me faith that there are people on the front line working tirelessly to address this. Frank is Club Leader at Crown & Manor which is situated in Hackney. His team provides much needed mentorship, stability, safety, and real-world skills to the borough’s youth most in need of positive role models.
I’ve been reading Henry George of late (watch this space). He argues that economic progress brings its own type of poverty which is masked by gentrification and nowhere is this more the case than Hackney. Having grown up in Stoke Newington Frank has dedicated many years of his life in unglamorous service to youth work. Our conversation woke-me up to challenges facing society today and I heard some of the most moving stories of potential being unlocked in kids. Potential that would remain hidden were it not for the work of under-resourced leaders.
It’s rare to meet people who have soul in the game, particularly when the domain is as emotionally testing and unremunerative as youth work. For the rest-of us - out of sight – out of mind is an MO we are all guilty of employing. My conversation with Frank reminded me that we all have a responsibility to the next generation but also gave me hope through tangible case studies that if we dedicate a small amount of our bandwidth to charities such as the Crown and Manor Club life changing benefits can be reaped. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as we did in making it.
You can find more information on the Crown and Manor Club here: https://www.crownandmanor.org.uk/.
Hello and welcome to Meeting People with me, Amal Pandi. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with adventurous, rebellious and sometimes courteous free spirits. Tell us a bit more about what is the Crown of Mana Club.
Speaker 2:What is the Crown of Mana Club? What is the Crown of?
Speaker 1:Mana Club. And yeah, where are we? And what is it that you do here?
Speaker 2:The Crown of Mana Club is a boys club set up well, it was amalgamated in 1939. Backed by Winchester College, still backed by them today. It was set up for boys in Hackney, for the deprived area, to have somewhere to go to enjoy themselves and try to achieve. I don't think in the early days most of the stuff I've read wasn't so much on sport, it was just a meeting place where they can meet up A lot of boys in those days they were taught all kind of stuff, even to just hold a knife and fork properly, when you look back on and read some of the annual reports. So that's a brief history of the boys club. Where are we today, in 2024? We're still going, which is a testament to the committee, the many different committee in Chim and over the years and the connection with Winchester and in the early days of the London Borough of Hackney. What supported the club. Times have got harder over the years with less and less funding, but we're still here. I think most of the parents are happy that they send their boys here.
Speaker 1:So what do the boys do? Why do they come here?
Speaker 2:I think for two reasons. One is a lot of mums want their boys to come here. They prefer them coming here than on being on the street. There's a place to play and learn to a certain extent in a safe environment. If you speak to a lot of mums, that's why they're here. For some of the other boys, what make their own way is to do sport, work on their bodies in the gym, and also to some of them it's for advice, because we don't advertise it a lot. But we speak to a lot of 15, 16-year-olds and they come to talk to us about the problems they're having, not only at home but just involved with school and a lot of problems that the average 15, 16-year-olds will have. They're going through puberty, but it's not only that. To me at that age it's one of the most dangerous age for a young boy in London at the moment between the age of 14 and 16. So they've got to deal with all the pressures what life brings to them.
Speaker 1:So let's zoom out then. It sounds like the Crown of my Club is this island of stability within Hackney where boys can come and just feel safe and can progress. But what is causing them to have that need? Macro or culture-wise?
Speaker 2:I think it's a hard one because they come to us for all different reasons. For some we'll use sport, but it's not really sport, because when they talk to what's the word for it, they kind of I wouldn't say they hook on to certain staff. They feel more comfortable with certain staff. So certain boys will open up more to someone like Brenda who's a liaison officer. Some certain boys will open up more to their particular football coach, or certain boys will then speak to me or speak to Andrew, because we've been there a long time, but also I know some of their parents, but they will come and talk about just the problems they have, not only at schools as well, and especially at the moment we're having a real problem with, I would say culturally, with a couple of the boys. I don't even like having a dig at schools, but there's a big problem with schools between year six and year seven, a crossover at this moment In this area.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of schools, academies this is my view and they will deny it most of the schools. I think they've come heavy handed on some of these boys with detention, because they've got a view on inner city boys already Now, one of the things they've got to realise and I don't think I would be any different if I was a kid. You're in primary school and you're in year six and you're told to talk and have banter and have a laugh. Suddenly, going into year seven, you can't talk. Most of our year seven boys have been in so much detention because they're not used to being told that they can't talk at all. I find this a bit of a nonsense. Schools are saying it's discipline and I just think it's a way of controlling kids. They're also saying now and another to me I'm calling it yuppie cat phrase. It stops bullying. I'm thinking because if they're not talking you can't be bullied. But I'm thinking she can be still bullied. If you come out the school gate you can get bullied.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking at these schools of today and I'm thinking what's your real reason? I remember I know times have changed. I remember when I went to school a lot of teachers lived in the area. We've visited some of these schools and in locally and these teachers live miles away. They drive in.
Speaker 2:They've got no empathy with some of these kids, boys or girls. They've got a fixed view on them and then soon as the boy or girl opens their mouth. They see them as trouble. So a lot of times the boys come to us and they're telling us they're problems, but we're just saying, look, these are the rules, you've got to do it, but we're helping you. Some of them are what's the word for it? They're not doing too well at schools because no one's pushing them. People have got an assumption of them.
Speaker 2:So we're in a mix between two lots of boys at the club at the moment. We know some of the boys need the help, but they're too proud to ask and they don't want to be seen as so-called thick, so they will refuse the help and the others then will come and say, look, I'm struggling. I think in the last 10 years we've got a fantastic record of not every boy has to be academic, but we've got a fantastic record of boys going on to university, but the ones are not. We've seen them through help them get on apprenticeships and how they're qualified plumbers or electricians, and then we're just always pushing them to try to say, look, there's a big world out there. I don't know what your school's telling you, but now you're reaching 16, going in doing sixth form, you're going to know it's a big change. So we speak to a lot of parents because we've got a real mixture of different ethnic mix. We've got a lot of in the last three years, a lot of Eastern European. We've got Somalians, we've got now and they take pride in saying they're Garnayans. So we've got a bit of real banter in the clubs.
Speaker 2:And we've got one of our under-nines is Adam and it was so funny the other day because he's Albanian, stroke Greece because his mum went to Greece when she was two, but he's still. He is a real debate about. First time in my life I've never heard anything. He said he's mixed race white and we and there was having a debate with some of the other under-nines and they asked me and I said what does that mean? And he said no, he's mixed race black, I'm mixed race white. And I said no, all your parents are white. No, my granddad's black.
Speaker 1:And I said oh is he.
Speaker 2:I said oh, I apologize. And it was weird because when his mum came, his mum said why are you saying your granddad's black? No, he's not. He said he is, he is. And I said so. The mum said no, he's not. He said well, why is his skin so dark? She said because that's a tan. That's a tan.
Speaker 1:It's the Greek coming out.
Speaker 2:That was so funny. And then she said we lived in Greece for a long time, so his skin got darker and your granddad's Albanian, and it was just funny. So we have a real mixture of different boys in the club. I think I wouldn't know what all other clubs do. I've tried visiting a few. We've had a lot of input now from parents taking their boys from other clubs, bringing them to Crown of Manor Because it's funny, because they've said that we've got structured activities it's not just somewhere where they can just hang out and do nothing and because they seem to get in more trouble. I'm more involved with about free clubs locally. I'm always looking at what they're doing. They're more backed by Hackney but they're good at what they do. One of the clubs we work quite closely with we want to try to do some joint bids for the summer project.
Speaker 1:So let's double click on the schooling challenge. It feels like one of the purposes you're serving is this sort of role model provision effectively, because the schools, it seems like, are too focused on enforcing rules or just keeping people going and getting them out of their hair once the gate's shut. Is there also a challenge of culturally a lack of role models? At home as well, and so you're finding yourselves kind of stepping up to the plate to kind of support that.
Speaker 2:I mean I wouldn't say all. I've got to be careful because there's a quick assumption always to say, especially about young boys, in Hackney, everyone's single parent. I don't agree with that. What I do agree with a lot of times. A lot of our boys there's quite a few mum and dad are not together, but their dads are still involved with their life to a certain extent.
Speaker 2:What we try to do here we're quite hard. I always try to say to people now, because I'm much older, I'm the taskmaster, you've got the youth workers more closer to your age, but this is certain standards we expect. We're trying to. If you stay along the journey from maybe eight going through, which is very hard to do hopefully we're bringing you through from a young boy through puberty to a young man, to a man, and then hopefully, if you go through that journey, you'll be on the right path. Because some of them need discipline.
Speaker 2:Some of the way they talk to their mums are the honest.
Speaker 2:So I think it's disgusting and we have to be hard on them and I think it shocks the mums sometimes and then they say to us no, you're right, and I'll say well, it should really stem from the parent. But sometimes when we say, because we're the man, they kind of their eyes rise. We raise their voice because I think through different cultures when their mums say it. The mums has to say it about six times for them to listen. And then, once we raise our voice or we've got this thing now one of the workers started off, jason, where some of the boys now, when their mum or their big sister drops them off, we tell them to hug them and kiss them, and they first of all, they never want to do it, and we say, no, they've taken time out to bring you to the club. You hug them or you give them a kiss to say thank you because they're leaving now. And so now we just say what do you say, what do you do? And then they go and run and hug them.
Speaker 1:I bet the mums love that. Yeah, no, they do. There's a tear to come, that comes to the eye.
Speaker 2:And I would say yeah, because without your mum, what do you have? And then they look and we always kind of hit back on, say everything you've got on you is your mum's provided it for you. So appreciate your mum or your big sister. So it's with the schools. I don't know. I don't know if what I think some of the schools have done they've gone too far. There's the difference between the normal comprehensive and these academies. These academies were built to everything on strictness and I'm thinking I'm for strict, I'm for that, but you've got to have a leeway. You've got to have a leeway, but what they're telling us, some of the stories we're hearing now, is just absolute nonsense and I'm wondering why have they done that? Their argument has always been to stop this and stop that and I'm thinking, no, you don't want to engage with these young people, so it's a quick way.
Speaker 1:I suspect they've been given targets, and the targets is driving the behavior, and so they're stamping out personality which might help stop them from meeting these targets, whether it's discipline or exam results or whatever it might be attendance to get whatever funding they need, and therefore the human side is being lost just to meet these kind of arbitrary figures that they've got, and that's why we won't mention schools, but we went into a couple of schools and we was invited into and we was in 45 minutes low school, secondary schools.
Speaker 2:Never heard one student talking 45 minutes, not one, not in the corridor, not allowed to talk in the corridors, going between class. And then the argument is which makes sense, why would we as a club want to build links with that school? Because one of the things I've noticed with our boys, when a couple of teachers have come into Crown of Manor, our boys, especially the 15-year-olds, they were very weary because, from their point of view, is God, don't tell me they're coming into Crown of Manor now. Because we had to speak to some of them and said no, no, no, they're just visiting Relax. They said no, no, if they're coming, we're not coming here no more. Because they've experienced what they experienced at school and they feel coming here even though we're probably maybe even stricter than the school, but there's boundaries here and what we try to say to them is we want the best for you, we will try to do anything that's available, but you have to have a respect for the building and a respect for your peers.
Speaker 1:I remember speaking to one of the boys who comes here and he put it really well. He said the club enables boys to express themselves. So strictness is, as you say, important. You need to have boundaries and discipline and not disrupt other people's enjoyment of the club or be rude. But you should also that shouldn't negate you being yourself and being an individual and bantering your mates and having fun at the same time. Both things are not mutually exclusive and it sounds like these schools have decided that. You know, banter fun and personality can be. You know, is expendable. So I just you mentioned that in the old days in Hackney the teachers would live near the schools and there was an element of sort of community that made that was part of.
Speaker 1:I grew up in Islington and I'm guessing you know Islington changed a lot from when I was a kid. Hackney and I'm sure there's a lot of overlap, and not just in London, but people listening who've grown up in the cities around the UK and wherever else it might be but how has Hackney changed since you were a kid? Because if you look at it from a data and statistics perspective or look at it from the outside, you know look, property prices have gone up. There's lots of new jobs, it's you know. There's lots of fancy coffee houses. You can pay four quid for a latte and get, you know it's very artsy, and there's you've got a shaw ditch and it's very hippie and lots of officers. But is that hiding some of the reality, other challenges of Hackney, or is Hackney, would you say, has come on a lot?
Speaker 2:I would say it's hiding a lot of it. People like to say I keep hearing this argument and Hackney is this great big melting pot where everyone mixes. I've never heard so much rubbish in my life. Really, when you really look at it I'll say, well, we've got every different cultural mix in Hackney. But when you really and no one doesn't want to admit it when you really analyze it, no one don't really mix. You know, people will have Kurdish or Turkish, british, black, white everyone will be in Hackney.
Speaker 1:But it stays their tribe yeah they stick to their tribe.
Speaker 2:What I do see more and more is what's much more different to when I grew up and I'm hoping it will change for the better. The younger ones don't really see color as much as when I grew up or when I first came to this club. I see a lot more younger ones and I listened, even the boys in the club. I'm amazed when I'm seeing not amazed, but I know how they are when I hear boys having sleepovers. You know, in my day, god, it would never happen.
Speaker 2:Well, in terms of like, mixed like so you'd have a sleepover at real friends. But it's, it's not. It doesn't even matter what color you are.
Speaker 2:They're just all friends and they're saying, oh, mum can add them sleepover tonight and then said, of course, and then there. So I see that as a change. But in general one of the things I see all these politicians and counselors they never want to admit there's an underlying problem and one of the biggest problems I see is how, especially in the last 10 years and before that, I remember when I grew up, Islington wasn't even seen as like a yuppie thing. It was seen as like a rough area. Then it changed and then what? What I'm seeing now is it's moving down from Islington down into Hackney because property prices in is and it's gone sky high. So it's gone coming down to this part of Hackney and properties going up again. So we have all these people arguing now, what is Hackney? Because we're in, we're on the borders crown of Manor, yeah, just down the road. I know people will say offer the down the road, debug, bar they to your measurement. They don't call that Hackney, they call it North Islington.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because that stigma they want to be. And I'm saying to people no, no, it's Hackney. No, no, no, it's North Islington and I thought we talked about but that's the name now they've given themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got like I used to live in. I used to live in Kilburn after when I was working and Kilburn's next to West Hamster and West Hamster is this place that everyone wants to be and Kilburn is nice but like it's less well, let's say, relative to West Hamster. And I, knowing London very well and having lived in Kilburn for a bit, I've had two, two occasions in my life where people who used to live in London I'd asked them so where did you, where did you live? And they'd go West Hamster and I'd be like oh, no way, I lived in Kilburn. Where about some West Hamster way? Because I used to go to West Hamster all the time. And I'd see their faces drop because they're like well, it was Kilburn really. And so I guess I'll know he knows he's going to figure my bullshit out and like do you see this kind of like people not wanting to associate themselves with certain certain places?
Speaker 2:And it's, it's, it's very amusing actually, and I'm and I can see it more and more in this part of Hackney where I have no problems with. To me, everyone you live, you move, you go where's best for you, but don't suddenly try to change it and say and change the whole focus, the whole criteria. And you know, a lot of times people don't like what I have to say, because a lot of these are called young, young couples moving in. They get themselves on the school boards and then they they change the dynamics of the schools because they're the new power brokers in the area and you're thinking, well, you're not really for the young people in the area You've. You know, I wrote on my management report a couple months ago. Might not have went down to too well, but I was being honest. You know, I grew up 40 odd years in Stonk, nolnton and then you've got areas now in just down the road from us, the both of us there further down, they call it.
Speaker 2:They call it the both of us, the both of our village, and then, you're thinking you know, you know you don't even come up this area, but you're kind of like call it yuppie, fight down that way, stonk Nolnton's the same thing.
Speaker 2:So you go to church street and there's restrictions on what business now can set up on church street and I said, bit by bit, that's how you re gentrified the area and then people brought up there somehow, bit by bit, you move them out. I look at the last 10 years all these flats were just build around here. There's hardly any family. What when the council first said they was moving them out, to redo the flats and bring them back in? They're not here and we knew their families. We knew the boys and them and the girls and them. They're not here, no more.
Speaker 1:You get this in Chapel Market off Upper Street as well, where you had. You got this market now. Well, it's been there for over 100 years.
Speaker 1:Traders come in, set up in the mornings and you've had all, as you say, young couples working in finance work you know very well they've moved in and they don't like the noise, and so there's a big tussle going on the council between people who've been here of doing, you know, business and trade, versus the people who are worried about, I think, this property price. Wanting to keep their property prices up is driving their behavior versus what's right for the local community and this crowding out gentrification thing is a challenge.
Speaker 1:I mean I remember one of the mums here in the kind of manner telling me it's got so expensive to park. It's almost easier to just to get a parking ticket versus paying for parking because you know she's got to, she works in the decorating trade. She's got to drive her kid here, then she's got to drive off to you know, to paint. I mean she is a single mom. I know you're saying that.
Speaker 1:But, you know, we talk about the mother's load. She's got a real load to make sure her son's safe and then go off and earn some money and it's become so difficult to drive around here or to park or you've got to pay congestion now and you layers and all these things. So I feel like there's a big London, the London I knew, versus the London today, is a big culture clash happening and it's it's the poorest that are probably, you know, the ones who are going to suffer the most in the shakeouts.
Speaker 2:No, definitely I. So far we've been lucky. But I've always been waiting for someone above us, the flats above us, to put in a complaint about the noise. Because wherever you go, you always see it, and I think out of the something like 84 flats above us, something like that, there's only one family and, bit by bit, you always feel that they're going to make noise sooner or later, putting a complaint. I don't know who to, or there's always these noisy boys outside. But in the early days we had a couple of people come down to the club when we first moved in and I just said to them look, this is our land, we just allowed you to live above us, so you're not dictating to us. And then she didn't like it at the time, but we've never I don't know she's still there, they were. They were accusing our boys of all different things when we first moved and their bike shed's always been broken into. They said if it's not the boys, is it the staff? Wow, you know. And we said is it the staff?
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know. So we had all that in the early days. But, yeah, I'm one of those firm believers. You know, I listened to counselors and politicians about hackney all the time and I think that, to be honest, I look at them. I think you're either deluded or you don't see the picture, because I can walk you around certain parts of hackney in the winter months and you wouldn't walk there and you would then see a different side of hackney.
Speaker 2:You everyone sees now the prosperous. Well, you know the side, what they want to see, and say Hackney's doing brilliant. And then you speak to other parents and boys of parts of Hackney where they come from and you're thinking, god, I mean, you know, god, I mean we've got some boys take free buses to get here. They live that deep into Hackney and their parents that say, because they're just happy for them to come here three times a week out of the areas they are where they live and we say, what about getting home?
Speaker 2:So we have a real problem. We play football matches in a midweek league over market road in Islington and for some reason I've always had rousers in the league. To me they should do it the other way around. The older boys play late at night, and what time, what time?
Speaker 1:are we talking?
Speaker 2:We refuse to go past half eight on start at half eight. Our latest fixture is half eight and now finish half nine, quarter 10. Other teams would go on start at nine and I said, well, if we get a nine o'clock fixture we can see the game. Our boys have to make their way home.
Speaker 1:And they go get a school. Next, and they go to school.
Speaker 2:The leagues and they're not bothered. My argument is one you let the young ones go first. They would say, no, they're the babies. I said yeah, but the babies come with their parents. They could be home within 10 minutes in the car. I said these boys 15, 16, have to make their way by buses. They're crossing different boroughs, gangs are out, there's all sorts of problems. We've had numerous boys robbed on the way to the club or even on our road, wiltshire Road, just being held up after they've left here.
Speaker 1:So would you say crime has changed or got worse since you?
Speaker 2:got worse Since I first came here. Crime's got worse. Different problems when I first came. When I first came there this might be off the subject this was the area of the home of the National Front when.
Speaker 1:I first came here. What year are we talking? We're talking. I came here in 1985.
Speaker 2:And in my life I never experienced racism until I came here.
Speaker 1:Where did you come from?
Speaker 2:I was in Stoke, nolnton and I didn't experience racism at all until I came to this club and the aggression and the grief of the members and the staff and people waiting. I remember because of times when parents were waiting to have fights with me and other male staff when I first came here.
Speaker 1:When you were a kid.
Speaker 2:No, I came here as a I was 19 as an A level student, yeah, and I was doing voluntary work. Got it and it just I used to go home thinking and I used to say to my friends this club is amazing, it was a great experience because I never I thought what an experience coming to a boys club where you can play football, tag with tennis, never experienced it. But then, on the other hand, god, the names you were called, you know, and by the parents by the parents and the boys.
Speaker 2:It was in gross, there was only in 1985, there was only three black boys. What came to this club? There was another local club just down the road called the lion. Now, right, you're wrongly. Um, from what I was told, a lot more black boys went to that club. This club had a stigma as a being, as a, a racist club, an NF club, and when I first came they were telling me the boys took pleasure in telling me how they driven out black women's staff, spat on one, and they took pleasure. And I remember just saying you ain't doing that to me because I just thought I was a 19 year old, I'll go to war with anyone. If anyone's gonna do that, try that with me. And so I stuck by my guns and then over the years some of those boys had to leave and some of the staff had to leave.
Speaker 1:Well, it feels like I mean from your comments earlier about boys having sleepovers and parents mixing. That's been a real positive development but interestingly, as the borrower's got wealthier, in inverted commas. The racism problem has receded, which is great, but the crime problem has accelerated or changed in some ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things I noticed when I first came there was always gang problems. But when I first came there was gang problems between estates. So I knew of the Marquess and Packington and then would come over to fight Colville or Debover. So it was like Hackney versus Islington. It was like a common thing and I used to think this is madness, why are they like that? I never could get the answer for it. People just used to say the boys in the club used to say some of them, our boys, weren't, because we were on the border. Half of our guys in those days were Islington, half was Hackney and they used to say that's how it is.
Speaker 1:People would just pick something. If it's not that, it will be something else.
Speaker 2:But over the years, now seeing it now it's just changed drastically. Whereas there's people just rob anybody and they don't care how old you are, what color you are and who are they?
Speaker 1:Are they school boys doing that? Or old, or old?
Speaker 2:I would say they're all between the age of 14 and 18.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, when you speak to the police and I can understand their view they can't be everywhere. They can only act when the crime has taken place. But by then it's all right. You're coming round to the club now, but those boys don't hang around after they rob someone, so they drive around in the car. You're not gonna see them.
Speaker 1:And this has got worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say in the last, especially in the last five years, it's got worse.
Speaker 1:And if it's over the last five years I'm guessing that the preconditions or the ingredients were probably you know before then to allow that to now be manifesting itself. Over the last five years We've talked about the police, very briefly talked about schools, and so the police can only come in when a crime is happening or after the offence is taking place. You guys, youth workers, youth clubs, are there maybe to keep boys safe, but also as a preventative measure for some boys that may go that way to being part of that crowd.
Speaker 1:If we step back, what's missing? Is it culture? Is it society? What's getting us to this point? Are you guys a sticking plaster? Or what's? Another example let's say war, right, like you're the field hospital in the war, that's after the battle dealing with you, know, or during the battle dealing with injured soldiers. But what is the war? How do we stop the war to get to, so that you can retire effectively and not need to be here?
Speaker 2:I don't know, to be honest, I don't know if you can stop it. I think.
Speaker 1:Human nature?
Speaker 2:I guess, yeah, I think it's like human nature You're always going to have good and bad. I think there's always going to be a need. I, me personally, like there's a need for schools. I think there's always going to be a need for youth clubs. Now youth clubs can go down all different routes. I remember one of the things when I took over.
Speaker 2:I had my own experience in this club. I had many years watching or observing and it was great even for me as a young guy playing sports with the members when I first came. But I remember a particular group of boys and when they kind of left the club at 16, 17, and they didn't do really well at school didn't mean they were failures. I looked at myself and I looked at the club and I thought what have we really done to help them? Or was this what it's all about? Just coming playing pool and snooker and then leaving, no one's showing an interest in them, how they're doing at school, what was their private life? And I remember one particular staff said to me many years ago when I was just a novice in the club that's not our responsibility, frank, they just here to play, don't get personal with them.
Speaker 1:Get them off the street, that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when that particular group left around 18, I just thought could have done more and then I wasn't in a position to try to do more. So when I became leader I tried to enforce a few things around academics and I had a big fight. I certainly remember staff because what I was trying to implement was every boy what does junior boxing or football, has to do an academic class of their choice.
Speaker 1:So in the so I- Like a coach Carter type approach.
Speaker 2:And I said because then we can keep tabs on them, see if they're struggling. So at the time we had Spanish is still going 15, 16 years later. We had French. We really pushed hard on homework groups.
Speaker 1:What I found interesting is you've had boys who have struggled at school. But because of this effort that you've done I mean, give me some examples to be really helpful but like because of the effort you've put in here, it's unlocked something and now they're going back to school and kind of flourishing. Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, as we were saying earlier. I hope you don't mind me mentioning his name. Am I allowed to use his?
Speaker 1:name yeah, yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:Like a young man called Rob Nicholl came to the club around 14. And I mentioned there's a few of them. Rob wasn't what you'd call an A grade student but he was willing to work hard. And then he came on the football academy and we had big rouses with the local college because they were doing a course which wasn't these boys were doing football and leisure and tourism. We wanted something different and we had a big college staff meeting with parents and ourselves and the college was saying to the parents we're the professionals who do you trust. You know, I saw someone like Frank and I remember Rob saying Rob's mum was saying if Frank says my son can do more, I'm backing him. And I was quite pleased. She said that and a few of the others did as well. And then Rob's just gone on. We saw him. He put in a lot of work, a lot of graph. We got him through. We moved college to City of New Zealand.
Speaker 2:College we were as a football academy was the first pilot scheme at the time to do BTEC Sports Science in the country. They had a lack of staff to do it because it was a new novelty, so they wrote in myself and Richard Allen at the time was the club leader. They said you guys need to help teach and I said me, oh God. And they said you got qualifications to help on these different units of sports science, which we did do. And we got someone like Rob Froot College and then he went on to do a degree and then he went on to become a qualified school teacher and after I think it was two years, I persuaded him to become my assistant at Crown of Manor and then, within a couple of years, he became head of Education at Queen's Park Rangers Football Club. Wow, and after about three or four years doing that, he's one of the. He's the educational officer for the Premier League. What goes around to all the football clubs when they get audited it's like off-snad and he does all their education. And Rob's still involved with the club today, as he's him and Pete, my father, and is leading up the website, changing our website.
Speaker 2:And we've got so many like that Lennard. We've got Lennard's another one, his mum. It was going. Lennard will argue with me now about 16, 17,. His mum I'm airing my ring in me saying he's coming in at four. He's going down the wrong route with the wrong kind of people in that part of Hackney. At the time he was part of Hackney in Clapton it was called. It was funny. The police gave it a nickname Murder Mile. It was on the news, everything.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And his mum was really concerned he was going down the wrong route. So we had some well, nowadays they call it tough love. We had some strong words so we had to discipline him and now, you know, absolute joy seeing him. You know he might be passing it tomorrow. Actually he's gone on. He was his goalkeeper coach part-time at Arsenal Football Club. He worked for Tottenham and Spurs Bay. He's also a qualified teacher, works in a secondary school and he's the head of year nine in a secondary school. We've got so many examples like that. We've got young guys. You know, at the moment people are saying crowd of man are off taking over Arsenal Football Club Because the under-23 coaches, mehmet Ali he works side by side with Arteta, mehmet came through the club Again. People always didn't think they were going to achieve. We've got Michael Donelson on Arsenal's under-16 coach. He's got two businesses one. Many years ago he won Young Interpreter. What do you call it? Entrepreneur of the year?
Speaker 1:He's also Antigua's national case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we've got Eddie Munnley, another one from Hackney. Went over, done a four-year scholarship degree in Los Angeles, came back was working in a bar, couldn't get a job. Now Eddie works for FIFA. He's in Tanzania. They set up these academies. He's one of the main coaches. He just done a year in Finland, he's now doing a two-year in Tanzania. And all from Hackney, you know, from this club, and we've just got young men all over the place now all what we'd officially called Tough Love. I wouldn't call it Tough Love then. It was just some strong words about looking at your life. Where you want to go, the club will help you, but you're going the wrong way at this present time and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:There's this concept in. There's not a concept. There's a term they use in India. There's a state in India called Bihar, which is what one writer described as the place where civilization goes to end, and it's renowned as being the roughest, most you know deprived and crime-ridden, gang-ridden state in India, with a huge population, and 20 or years ago there was a huge cleanup and just law and order was the stability. People felt safe and comfortable to then start a business, go down to school, and it's now in the fastest-growing states in India because what they call the safety dividend, because that simple thing of just providing stability and a bit of tough love and some tough words has created you can't even measure it and so you get the other things this sort of you know the butterfly effect, where a butterfly beating its wings in Brazil creates a hurricane in Europe.
Speaker 1:You've actively unlocked potential for boys to have a positive impact on the world in a way that you'll, you know, never be able to fully calculate or measure, but just small, not small, I don't mean to belittle it, but like what's effectively things that you seem small at the time but are now just really having a dramatically positive impact on the world is. Must? I mean, does it help you sleep better at night? Or do you just feel like God? It's just an onslaught out there, it's just wave after wave and it's never going to end? Or does it help you to do these little stories over the years that you've been doing this? Keep you going.
Speaker 2:It keeps me going. And then it's good to see these guys from I call them, even though they're still in the Volvo some kind of output in the club, but I can always look back on them. But then I look at the present day ones. So all the ones maybe five years ago and we're still working behind the scenes with some of them because some of them have had problems but they don't like to advertise it. So when does youth work stop? To me, it never stops. If you come through Crown of Manor, it's not just about a particular age group if I can still help you in your 24, 25, or even a young man, because they still come for advice and that's what we do. As I said before, we've got a couple of our young workers Spike, yousha and Flemer even though they're youth workers, part-time youth workers here. I see that as my role still to mentor them, to get the best out of them, because their careers are just starting and I want them to go on and really frithe and they might end up leaving the club like most youth workers will. They've all, as we said, archie, marlon, leonard, they've all came through the club as part-time workers as well, to help them when they financially were as a student. But they've gone on to great things. So I'm always pushing Yousha, flemer and Spike to achieve what's your goal. You've got potential and then we've got the younger ones. We've got a few now at uni.
Speaker 2:I was moaning at one last night because he was saying he's got to catch the 8 o'clock train from Houston back to Manchester so he's got an exam on Friday, but he's doing basketball. He was down here to do a film shoot for an advertising firm. So I was just having a go at Pisco and I said, no, you need to catch that train. And he said, frank, I'll get it, I'll get it. And I said, well, at 7 o'clock I'm coming down and telling you you need to move. So we're always it's not to me.
Speaker 2:There's this view through the youth service that youth work stops at a certain age. It's intriguing because what is a youth? Because when I first got involved they had these age barriers. They used to say 11 to 16, and I thought that's nonsense. So I used to say what happens if you're under that? That's not a youth, that's like crush baby. So I remember when I first got involved with a club it was on the old Ken Livingston, ilea, and that's what they would give grants for 11 to 16. And bit by bit I've seen them change their age. All I've always used to moan about you need to try to catch well as a boys club, the boys at a younger age. If you reach, some of these boys are on the street by 13, and it's very hard to change them.
Speaker 2:You can get them at a younger age and try to drill in certain things. You've got better charts.
Speaker 1:So what's the youngest a club takes?
Speaker 2:We've got a junior club now really starts at seven. But we give a squeeze if you're just over six and a half and you can show that you can hold your own in the club a bit without babysitting. So we start really around seven. And then over the years I've seen the age range. Now people always make comment about Crowler Manor being a boys club I think we're the only one left in Hackney. But what they're not saying is, very smartly, how they say, how they use the age range. So suddenly now a youth has gone from 11 to 16. Up to now they're saying 25. And I have no problem with that. But to me you're a young man now or a young woman, but you would give out funding. But I know.
Speaker 1:So you're missing out on funding because you're not taking 24-year-olds.
Speaker 2:Oh no, no, we're not missing out on that. But it's funny how when people say about boys club but you really are funding for boys club, because when you look at most youth clubs they don't want to generalize. But most of the clubs I've seen or come across, why have you put the age up? Because in general when you see on the news there's always some sort of crime. It's mostly to do with young men. I haven't come across hardly any youth club where I see young girls and young ladies in their 20s. They have different agendas, they have different interests. So when you really say you're putting the age up, you're really basically saying you're putting it up for boys and men so people can work with them. Because that's the problem on the street, because I hardly ever see any club where I see a 24-year-old girl are in regularly using those clubs. But they won't want to say it's boys and young men. But that's what it really is in my opinion, but that's fine. But then don't try to stigmatize or say we're sexist or we're this or we're that because we're a boys club. I have no problem with mixed clubs. I have a sense of purpose that at this present time, and maybe they will always be.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure there's a case to work with young boys and men.
Speaker 2:They, you know, had done some work many years ago where I had a friend who was a deputy head in a local primary school and he asked me to come in for a week to just observe and give him feedback.
Speaker 2:And apart from him there was another male teacher in the school. But one of the things and I was and I don't like knocking parents and I could see I watched and observed and for a whole week and then, bit by bit, he said to me at the end of the week, what did you observe? And I said I noticed a couple of boys at the time. Their heads dropped the more the week went on and it was purely because and I don't think as parents, I know parents are busy and I don't think they realize the damage what's affecting some of the boys. One of the things was that they were doing work in school. These were like year five, year six boys, and every time the parents came to pick them up I noticed that the boys wanted to show them what they done, but through the mum being really busy and everything they just didn't have, there was no interest.
Speaker 1:They banned us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just said, oh, just put on your coat, don't worry about it. And I saw the look on those little boys' face. It was like all the life had been sucked at them. They were so eager to show what they had done. But the parents wasn't interested. Now, that could be because the mum is busy and she's just worried about getting them home cooking the food. But and then, what my friend said to me at the time was a deputy eddy. He said Frank.
Speaker 2:And then you start to see from there a drop off of when they go secondary school, the interest ain't there to study, because from primary school, when the parents ain't showing no interest, they give up. And I saw it first hand. So when I saw it, when it came to Karate and Omana, we, some of the parents, came to us and said, look, they're not playing. We used to do karate as well. They're not playing, they're not doing karate, they're not doing football because they're behind in school, way behind. And I thought, well, that's affected the team, that's not helping your son. So we kind of said, can we compromise? And parents said, compromise, no, they're not playing. And I said, well, if we put on classes for them and make them do their work, can they play? Because then you win and it's not punishing the team.
Speaker 2:And they said, if you can do that, and that's when the homework class really bared more fruition, and we just expanded on that and we made it quite clear If you don't want to do it, you can come to the club and take part in anything else, but you can't play football and you can't do certain sports, because this is what comes with certain sports, you have to do an academic class of your choice. And it just took off and we've done it successfully, I'll say for about 10 years we had a lot of big organizations come down and say wanted to see us as this kind of role model, as a youth club. How can you get it to work? And we just said look, in general we know the boys don't want to do it, but it's compulsory and so they have to do it. And it worked probably for about 10 years.
Speaker 2:And then, bit by bit, I started changing my mind because it became harder and harder, with, I wouldn't say, new staff. We had parents then saying basically we don't want our child to do it. And even up to last summer we had one mom moaning to us that her son's way behind in school. Can you do extra with him Reading writing? He's way behind. He's a year six, but the school basically put him at year three or four. So she said I want him doing that out of the blue. So she said I want him doing that hour a day and if you need to be tough, total staff need to be tough when we try to do it with him.
Speaker 1:You're firefighting, Frank. Yeah, when we try to do it with him.
Speaker 2:He went back and complained to his mom it's a youth club, I don't want to study. Then she just said to us look, stop it. He doesn't want to do it. We said but we're only doing it because you asked. She said well, now I don't want him to do it. He doesn't want to do it, just wants to play.
Speaker 2:I said fine, and I said we can't do that. But I feel for him because he is way behind and he needs the extra help. But there's nothing we can do, so we're not gonna go against her. She said leave him and it'd be his loss in the longterm. And I thought you know what that's wrong as a parent. He's lost in the longterm. I thought you're the mom, you're not supposed to say he's lost in the longterm. You're supposed to say to him no, you're doing this because you are way behind and the club's gonna help you, but we've just left it as that. He comes to the club three, four times a week. We're fine, we don't have no arguments. And then we've got some of the boys still doing reasonably well. We had a couple of boys, year six, applying for a couple of private schools, doing some tests, and then we, just as I said, we've got private tutor in working with a few boys every Wednesday. One of the boys has just risen so well now in English he's like top and was he struggling?
Speaker 2:Well, way, way behind. He's first year in secondary school and in a year she's worked with him an hour a week, but it's more than an hour because she sets him homework. His mom makes sure he does it. And from being way behind, leaving in year six to top of English in year seven, that is some achievement and we're just, we're happy. We don't go around and say it's another one we saved. That's not what it's about. It's about we're just there to help him if we can.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of basically everyone's got inbuilt potential that is untapped, either because of either bad parenting or challenged parents for whatever reason, or because of poor schooling or because of safety, and you guys are firefighting effectively to mop up where you can, but you can't be everywhere fighting every fire, putting every fire out, especially if you're the other pillars.
Speaker 1:The school, the parents aren't doing their bit. I mean how you said you don't wanna generalize about single parents and this being a single parent issue. But to me, intuitively, putting Crown of Manor Club one side, but looking nationally, there must be some impact of this breakdown of a two-parent nuclear family where you've got elite, doesn't matter what gender they are, doesn't matter necessarily where the ones are man and woman. It probably does, actually, but let's just put that aside for one moment different gender roles, playing different parenting roles, but just having two people in the house every day so that when one's feeling tired or overwork the other one can go look, listen to your dad or your mom do your homework when the other one's overstretched, is how much of this is a problem of a lack of two-parent families, whatever gender they are.
Speaker 2:It works both ways, because I look on it in this day and age and we had this discussion, me and some of the staff we've seen two-parent families and if they're not pulling the same way then it doesn't benefit the child.
Speaker 2:I've seen two-parent families in this club where they're not really together. There's a real distance between them and they're just together because of marriage sake. And then I've seen some fantastic single parents and I'm thinking, well, that child's in a better state because that one where it's a two-parent they've got a lot of problems in their own relationship and it's affecting the child and I used to believe that it's always gotta be stronger with the two-parent. I'm not fully convinced, no more, because I've seen in this club when I first going back in history, when I first came there, nearly everyone was two-parent and I saw some of the and it's weird because it took me many years to have a child and I used to think I'm watching, if I do ever have a child. I'm watching good parents, I'm learning from the parents in the club, I'm learning to see who's a good parent, who's a bad parent, what can I pick up from here, what can I pick up from there? And, as I said, a lot of the boys when I first came, there was all two-parent, all nearly everyone. When I first came there was two-parent and I saw some terrible parent in, you know, and I still see it now two-parent and single parent. But I've seen some real strong single moms which I look at and I think, wow, I don't know how you do it, you're working and you're the breadwinner, but I'm so proud that you brought up this young boy, you know. And then, but it does help, you're right. You're correct in saying I have seen some of present day two-parents where they try to play one, but then the dad or the mom, whoever it is, will say no, no, no, didn't you hear what your dad or your mom said? And they are like the role model. So one of the things what we try to do was a couple of years ago. I'm gonna try to do it again this year.
Speaker 2:As our club we more see women than males bringing the boys here. So we introduced something a couple of years ago it was just a night of the boy, his dad, his granddad, his uncle or his mum's boyfriend, whoever the male in their life is at his present, because it's not always a dad bring them into the club so we get to know them and you bond with them playing all different colour games. And I was packed that night. We had to fire off a couple of grandmothers because they said, no, we want to come in. But we said no, it's a male bonding because we don't always see the males and it's not always a dad. We just said whoever's in your life, if it's an uncle, granddad, your mum's present partner or your dad, and it was just where it's.
Speaker 2:Every room there was something going on and it was just brilliant, a real brilliant evening. Just so. The boys had fun with their dads or their partners. It was so. It was just so funny and enjoyable to see them. And by the end of the evening some of our committee people here as well, they thought it was brilliant. By the end of the evening we could see for the first time we had some comments by some of the dads because what's happened with some of the dads? They've obviously split with their partner and they still see their sons but they don't spend as much time. So you mentioned earlier about this particular mum. Well, that boy's dad came here and he never had so much fun since he was a kid, and it was just great him. He spends time with his son, but maybe not as much as he should, but that night that unlocked something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he absolutely had a great time and I know since then he's even spending more time with, like most weekends now with him, and to me that's what it's about. But I would never say I think one of the things I would definitely say about the role models, I would definitely say some of these boys do look up to some of the male staff. Yeah, we do have an influence on them. They actually say it and we've got a few now. Was come through, was grown up and didn't even know, didn't even know the club still existed, and they've brought their sons here. So they say what? A couple of them say Frank, you still here, yeah, and he said, oh, so we've got a couple of little ones, eight, nine year olds. And then I dug up.
Speaker 1:You'll have some grandchildren coming soon.
Speaker 2:Frank, I dug up a photo of one boy's dad and I said to him Can you see what one was your dad? There's a group of about five boys. He had not a clue and I said that's your dad. And he said no way, that's my dad. He said how old is he? I said he was about 11 then and he said he took the pitch. I said yeah, take it, take it, take it to bring your dad.
Speaker 2:His dad came in and said Frank, my, his brother. He said has it? Have you got pictures of presentation night? When he said when Arsene Wenger was here many years ago, I said no, I don't know what happened to those pictures, because he's older brother used to run for the club and he wanted pictures. And I said no, then one's got lost over the years. So we've got history, but we've got real hardcore presence and it's changing. We see different communities, different kids. But one thing I just say to people and I might sound kind of cheapish the way I say, because people say, oh, different ethnic background, different culture, and I just say boys are boys. You know. I said once they come through, crown of manner, we don't have no outside nonsense. We make it clear If you've got any kind of gripes or if he's from this area, what's he doing there? I said once you come through this door, you're a crown of manner boy. So no nonsense and we've been lucky so far. We haven't had no major incidents over the years.
Speaker 1:And I also think anyone who tries to play this or make have this sexist argument that it's just because it's a boys club, it's in some way sexist. I think if you know nothing about youth work and you know nothing about the crown of manner club, maybe I could sympathize why you certain people, might think that. But the moment you do 10 minutes of work or digging or understanding, I think it comes clear and we don't need to explain it. You know you've everything that you've said up till now explains why. It's not about exclusion or sexism in any way. It's about fulfilling a certain need and providing a certain type of stability for young boys. That has an immeasurable impact on people around them.
Speaker 1:I think, how do you? I mean what makes you optimistic, I guess? Actually, let me answer it. Let me ask it another way. As you know, I have a kind of closing question, which I call the long bet, which may be a chance for you to put some optimism in. Maybe not, but let's try.
Speaker 1:But I say, you know you've got a 10 year view. What do you see happening over the next 10 years, whether it's something you'd like to happen or something you think will happen. And don't ask me why it's 10 years, but it is, and whether it's positive or negative, go for it and then let's see. Let's see. We'll be interested to see what you think. The reason I think this one's interesting is in the first episode I did with a guy called Simon Evan Cook. He's not a youth worker at all, he works in the investment industry but he said that his 10 year view will be a breakdown of social cohesion amongst youth coming through the ranks because of the ending of funding that happened and the fact that a lot of local charities just had to all of a sudden kick into action. Whether they managed to or not to fulfill that funding, who knows. But what do you see as the next 10 years looking like in the world that you operate in?
Speaker 2:Next 10 years. Funding again is a major thing. Me personally, I would like to see some sort of law where it's like compulsory for the government saying to these big city banks or businesses that just to say on UBS or Morgan Stanley, right for the next 20 years you have to fund Crown amount on half a million pound a year. I think if every big business done that and you prove to them what your output is not just not on numbers, it's on quality of youth work that you're having a major input on young people's lives and you're preparing them to go into the city or wherever. So I know a lot of these companies have to have a tax clause or something.
Speaker 1:CSR.
Speaker 2:And I feel then you can't keep relying on central government because money's getting tight and tight. But I really do believe that these big companies should be able to say, half a million pound a year that will fund Crown, amount up with all our big bills and all our problems, or, if not Crown amount up any youth club would just say you know, we're backing you, and it would allow you then to not only expand but try different things, because one of the things we've got a small staff team, very small for a youth work club. We've got, I think, three full-timers and there's this myth about we've only got was it seven? Six part-time youth workers, actual part-time youth workers, and that's a small team. What club opens five days a week but we do a lot on weekends as well and I just feel, if you could have that and a small number of people carrying a very big burden.
Speaker 2:And if we could have in 10 years, you know, I just feel that it's something. Instead of always saying about central government or local forage, we need more, more money. I just think all these big private companies should have one designated charity on youth work, because there's so many charities on youth centers, youth clubs, where they say, right, this is my club, we're backing them for 10, 20, 30 years because we like what they do. That's a guarantee and wherever they want or it could be, and I just feel then that is the way in the long-term forward. It's the help of the big, big organizations and it will allow us to have more freedom to try more things. There's so much more things you can do as a youth club, but everything comes over cost and then. So then you start analyzing and say, no, no, it's just stick to what we can do because we haven't got the funding. We can train staff as much as we want, but sometimes they're not the experts in their field. So I just feel like you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really powerful point, that giving you the freedom to experiment with certain. I mean you talked earlier about the guitars, for example. You bought or you donated some guitars as an effort to try and get some boys to take to music. They didn't that's fine, didn't work. You shouldn't feel so constrained that you can't try things, lots of things, small things like that, that could have again an immeasurable impact. And what surprises me, where? A mile and a half from the city of London, where we literally Matt and I, got into Liverpool Street and we walked here and we were here within half an hour. We walked past UBS and we talked about Arsenal Football Club earlier. The more we talk about Arsenal, the happier I get. So any excuse to get back there.
Speaker 1:But all these big football clubs, even, dare I say, atop them, will invest in their local area because they know that they're based here. They have this impact by virtue of their existence here. They're causing property prices to go up, they're causing businesses to migrate here, they're causing people to gravitate here. So there is a knock on effect of people who have lived here for a long time. And so these big city banks around the corner.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's, climate change is important. Yes, the rainforest is important and the pandas and the polar bears, don't get me wrong and we should be doing our bit there too. But by virtue of having your headquarters a mile down the road, you are driving up property prices. You are making things less affordable, and you should also. People like to save the world, but they don't like to think about their neighbour. There's poverty down the road from your office and people are stretched and constrained. Give them the room and freedom just to do a bit more, without feeling like it's a battle to get an idea through a committee or to have experimentation as an option taken away from you. So I think it's a really good idea to force whether it's by law, by just public pressures local businesses or businesses that are big but are local, to have some kind of responsibility, not just to the rainforest, but also to down the road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and touchy subject there's to kind of that 10 year what you say I'm saying. I constantly hear and I see on the news loads of times about gang crime and knife, crime and knife crime.
Speaker 2:And then they have all these consultations and I'm thinking this is crap, absolute crap, because you don't understand nothing when you're talking. You're talking and they have all this so called community leaders. I'm thinking I don't put myself up as a community leader. I'm thinking where you, how you say your community leader? Most of the people doing these crimes, a lot of times they don't even go to a youth club, they're out on the street.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So one of the things you need to work on is do we have something called detached youth work, which when I again, when I first came here, it was as important as youth workers in a building? The detached youth workers were out, they had a central office. But that's your job to work in the States, to work with young people. What don't go to youth clubs to be always working with them? You know, because a lot of these people I see them talk and say they're community leaders and I'm thinking you aren't leaders of no one, because no one's actually listening to you, because all the young people don't even know who you are. There's a great.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you ever watched Citizen Khan. It was like a comedy show on the BBC about five, seven years ago and it was based off a sketch of this Pakistani origin guy called Khan and one of the sketches was him. He goes hello, I'm Citizen Khan, I'm a community leader. And he goes into these sort of Pakistani shops and goes hello, hello, I'm your community leader. And these shopkeepers are like who the hell is this guy Like? It's very, very funny. I recommend anyone look it up and you see these people going on the BBC or on the radio and I bet no one knows who on earth you are.
Speaker 1:But you're publicity seeking, ego driven.
Speaker 2:And then what will happen is local, foreign or central government will give them a pot of money to do some sort of report and I'm thinking about. You're not addressing the problem. No one don't know these people. No one don't know them. Young people don't know them, or even not young people, even people in their 20s don't know them. People you know they. They either know or they don't want to admit what's really going on. So they try to until someone gets the whole gist of it and doesn't mind saying some half proper hard truths of problems we've got.
Speaker 2:My view has always been it's very hard to stop a 18 or 19 year old was being on the road for a long time to change their mind. You have to try to get them young through either youth clubs or detached youth works. But it's not only that. We was talking earlier with single parents. You have to work with the parents. Youth work is not just about the kid we, it's also working with the parents. If you, if you're in harmony with the parents, then the young person knows then they've got the youth club on their back and they've got their parents on their back. So then they know that there is no way out. We will not all of our parents, but we must have our boys know that they're in group chats with parents, different age groups, or we can pick up the phone and talk to them so that you're not playing us off, or your parents will ring us up and say that's what we know about someone at M with the tensions because they've been misbehaving. Can you look? They would say to mum, and them say they're more scared of us telling in crown of manner about their bad behavior at school, then being disciplined at home by us. Yeah, so they always they're playing with their parents not to tell us.
Speaker 2:But my view is again, if we're talking about a 10 year thing, is we're no one ever knows where we're going to be in 10 years. I don't, I never have any plans because the way I am is every day I wake up I'm just happy I'm here, and you know I don't. I don't plan for the future because I never know what's around the corner. People say that's a too much of a simplistic view. Well, for me that's how I am. I've seen too much in life where I think when you plan it is there's a way of coming back and kicking you in the bum. So I just now say I'm happy every day. I got my dad bed. I live every day. How it comes. I have great pleasure in seeing young boys growing to young men be successful. We we've not all our boys are successful.
Speaker 2:Some have gotten real trouble with police but we don't advertise it. We still work with them. We we've had the police come down. I would like that to be in the next 10 years a real prominent thing with us and the police the police done a really good session on knife crime and showing the effects. It was quite scary. You could see some of the teenagers how it affected them. How effect a knife can, the damage it can do on you. But we wanted it hardcore to make sure some of these boys actually see what it can do. Years ago now I think it's. I think it's healthy for the police. I think it's healthy for youth clubs. Many years ago, when I first got into youth work, part of the police training was being in youth youth clubs. They were called on their training things, police cadets. So it's good for the. You're building a relationship with the police and that's not happening now, is it?
Speaker 1:No, they stopped that many years ago, and I think it's wrong. Why do you think?
Speaker 2:they stopped that I think they were saying at the time a lot of community groups didn't want, thought it was wrong. I didn't, because one of the things I fought benefits because everyone's got stereotype views and no one's perfect. A lot of police metropolitan police originally come from out of London. So you've come with whatever view you've got of Londoners. To me your training, obviously your training is the law. But you've got to know about inner city people, inner city cultures, how to talk to them.
Speaker 2:And I used to see when I first came to the club some of the police cadets never made it onto the police force because they had some of the most outrageous views on members of the so-called minority ethnic minority. I remember the leaders at the time told their supervisors but some was brilliant. I remember some saying it's changed their mind. They came from remote parts of England and Scotland and they had these views. But just working it six weeks in a club getting to know all different people from different culture, they had a different view and that allowed them to go out in the world then to be a police officer with a balanced approach. So we tried still to get the police here as much as we can.
Speaker 1:I guess also on the flip side, as you say, people have stereotypes in their head and it demystifies for the boys. These are just human beings who also have your well-being and they're not this oppressive.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're coming onto that, no, no exactly because one of the things you see, because it doesn't matter who you are myself, when I was a young guy, you got an opinion of the police. Your first contact, my first contact as a 12 year old, wasn't good with the police, and so you have this thing. But when they're in the club, working as seen as a youth worker, it's breaking down those barriers. You know, and all that you want and the end of the day, is for everyone in society to get on, including the police, and young males, young females from all different sorts of society, and the young people don't have a myth about the police. Police don't have a myth about them because straight away there's barriers.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm much older now but I'm still wary of them the police, and that's from my first import as a kid and that's stuck with you, yeah, and that's always stuck with me Because and so you can imagine some of the young ones today they will have the same kind of opinion their first contact with the police, if it's negative, and it's always been from 12. I remember when I was at uni and I got stopped. I was in the West End three times at my uni and I was on the top of the crossover between Oxford Street and Topland Court Road and I remember I could take two buses to go home, either 38 or 73, so I was still on the corner. Wherever bus I saw I'd run to the bus stop and three times I got sturch Just for running for the bus. No, just being on the corner, everything thrown out into the street, all my books, everything, then name checked and everyone, and automatically, always automatically it's human nature think I must have done a crime.
Speaker 1:I mean you got? You see people stopping to watch?
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone's there just watching, thinking, oh, they wouldn't be holding him up if he didn't do anything. And then they said, oh, you haven't got anything on your record. And I said I know, I haven't, you know. And they said, well, there's been a lot of drug dealing in this area. Why are you just standing at a corner? I said I'm trying to explain about the buses. Oh, is that a fancy answer. And then by then I was 20, 21. And I'm thinking you know what? Nothing's changed, and I can see young people of today having the same view.
Speaker 2:Nothing changed but what we've tried to do. We've had a couple of times Islundson police, come and do some good stuff with us. We even one time they came around, we made them come around with their sirens pumping and all the kids said, oh, please, what's that we didn't tell them was coming? And then it was a bit of a real fun thing Because we said, no, you can go in the police van, because they can drive you around, because we made them come around in their sirens just to show that there is a police presence. And they were speaking to the boys. The boys were asking what's this for? It was real good fun.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:And we just want more of those kind of interaction. A lot of times they say they can't because cutbacks, and they don't. One of the worst things I think through the cutbacks is you don't hardly ever see a policeman walking the beat, no more. And I think as a kid growing up, I think you need that to stop crime as well. Kids, young people, need to feel safe. The most crime there is at this present time is young on young, and if people know police are always in this area not in their cars, but walking up and down and bit by bit they get to know you or they might know a couple of the shots I think the crime rate will go down. I think it will because people will say, oh, pc Joe blogs is in that area all the time. He's always around.
Speaker 1:I read every politician promises Bobbies on the beat and it never seems to.
Speaker 2:I've never had it's going to be that complicated. I just feel that in 10 years 10 years for the whole youth work thing to work I think there's got to be a real relationship with Business, police, schools and parents. I think schools feel Frightened a lot by youth clubs. I think, especially if they know I remember in the early days schools had didn't like the fact that we were doing it Extra curriculum. They said, well, why, why is your child doing that? A youth club where the teachers we say, well, we might be seen as youth workers, but nearly all our staff over the years have got degrees and qualified to teach as well. But why you feel frightened? We're trying to help you to have the easier life at school, but they don't. Or, to me again, is it their own bias and ignorance that you don't want to push certain boys and you want them to flop so easy? Now See so many of these prudent units spring up and then a kid raises his voice. Are you a troublemaker? Kicked out of school, You're going to go to a unit. I think those things are disgusting.
Speaker 2:There's always been problem kids at school. That's part of it. You've got to work with them. You don't know One of the things I was saying to someone the other day kids are kids, boys, girls, doesn't matter who it is. They might be a problem at school, but do you know the underlying reason why they might have serious issues going on at home? It could be a cry for help while they're a problem at school, but there's no interest. You just say their problem detention or kick them out.
Speaker 1:Well, you've touched on a big problem with human nature when it comes to looking at the world's challenges. Some people will say we need more funding for education or better school. Some people will say we need stronger policing. Some people say the family is broken, we need to re-incentivise. And some people say we need to more youth work and we have a real silver bullet mindset. We're like if we fix this one thing, everything will be fine. And actually what you're saying is it's teamwork, it's positive sum, we need all of it and we need to work together rather than see each other as the enemy or only one thing taking priority of the others. So, fingers crossed, lots of people listen to this and will take that on board and everyone's got to do their bit, whether it's UBS or whoever it is. Down the road to the mum trying to be stronger, with all that she's got going on to tell her kids to do her homework, to you guys getting more support.
Speaker 1:So one thing I just want to finish on you mentioned you try not to see every day, you try not to plan for the future. You just get off and you take each day as it comes. Do you ever imagine another future for Frank, like would you wake up some mornings and there has to be like, oh, I've dragged yourself out of bed and do it again. If only, yeah, or is this? Do you feel like you've got your mission and like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:do it again, Do you?
Speaker 1:see an alternative future for Frank In youth work. No, just that isn't in youth work. You know, you're 18 or you're 21 and you just like.
Speaker 2:Or is this what you feel?
Speaker 1:you were chosen to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure. No, I think what I was saying earlier. Matt was saying this one of those things where it's not Most youth workers don't do it for the money, it's not a greatly paid job, it's a job where you don't do it for praise. I fell into it. I'll be honest. I didn't see myself as a youth worker, wanted to be a history teacher, but with my as a young man growing up, I had a quite a hot temper and I remember Coming out of uni going back to my old secondary school because I had dreams of that's where I wanted to teach and which school was that?
Speaker 2:It was called Hackney Downs Boys' School, now it's Mossbourne Right, and I remember being in the corridor on. I heard a kid just going off on a teacher and I thought God times have changed In my days. The teacher had knocked us out for being rude and I just thought with my temper I can't be a teacher. I haven't got the personality because I would have flipped, because we couldn't have been rude to teachers in those days. But now I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know I've done quite a few different things involved with pro club football, but I think my if you want to call it a call-in I've seen the, I've seen the. What's the word for it? The fulfilment and the enjoyment of young boys coming to young men. What schools gave up on and where they are now. Schools and colleges could never say we knew you'd come through. And now you know. I've seen a couple of colleges use posters and say look, how successful are our ex-students. But you didn't want an arm at all. And so I feel, and all these young men will tell you, if it wasn't for Crown of Manor driving them didn't like it at the time, driving them on they wouldn't be where they are today. And so that to me is fulfilment.
Speaker 2:I look back and I think and then we've got a new batch, as I said, first year degrees, but also we've got a group of 15, 16, 17-year-old, very cross. They're in the cross ways of their careers at the moment and Very pair, pair, group pressure, influence, I would say I find more than ever more young people than ever before are led. None of them don't want to have their own individuality, they will go with the flow and we're trying, as Especially in the club, trying to say to the young guys have your own personality. Don't just say you know, some of them will say to us yeah, but everyone does it, so if I don't, I'm going to look the odd one out. But you don't agree with it, so don't do it, or you've got your own taste. But I feel that that could be like society in general and it's less and less of them having that personality. So I'm not sure what my calling is or what I would do.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, listening to it, we will know, you know you've had an immeasurable impact on and I've used the word immeasurable too many times in this podcast, but I think for good reason. We've got a saying which I'm sure you've heard many times skin in the game, which effectively is about encouraging people to feel the consequences of their actions, and it's a big challenge in business and in politics and in life, where you know an example would be you know, the Romans would force architects to sleep with their family under bridges that they designed and built so that the architect had skin in the game. They didn't build something faulty because their family would therefore suffer if it was faulty. The level above skin in the game is soul in the game, and that's for people who aren't doing it to avoid the downside, it's because they're in it.
Speaker 1:And I think, frank, you, of all the people I've spoken to, you know live and breathe that concept of soul in the game and you know the word inspiration is used too much, whether it's on, you know, pop idol, or you know dancing on ice or whatever it is, but you know, I think it applies here. So I just want to say a big thank you for taking the time to talk to me, but also a big thank you on behalf of all of us, londoners, brits, because you're doing, you know, not to put it too mildly, you're doing God's work, for and I'm not a religious guy particularly, but it feels like that term applies here you know you're at the front line in the war hospital, the field hospital. So, yeah, big thank you and keep it up, because the world needs more Franks to host. So, you know, hopefully this helps them. Thank you, thanks, thank you 其实.