Johnny Phillips: Starting young with the goal of tackling racism

SRtRC want to encourage participants in the competition to think about racism and produce their own work about the importance of tackling such a serious issue.

Young people are encouraged to produce work in any medium – artwork, creative writing, song, film and T-shirt designs.

Joining forces with EA Sports FC, the anti-racism football charity have launched a brand new initiative for the 2024 competition.

The “Design a Boot” category is a chance to design a football boot to be featured in-game next year.

If the design is chosen as the winner, then players will have the chance to wear the winning football boot in-game.

An independent panel of judges will select the winning entries and winners are invited to a special awards ceremony at a Premier League stadium.

Prizes are presented by special guests including current and former professional footballers.

At the recent launch event, several former professionals were joined by former Premier League referee Chris Foy and representatives from the Professional Footballers’ Association, to learn of the continuing good work done by the charity at an educational level across schools around the UK.

The back story to SRtRC is worth knowing. In the mid-1990s, Newcastle United’s ‘Entertainers’ were challenging for the Premier League title.

It was with this backdrop, that goalkeeper Shaka Hislop was at a petrol station near St. James’ Park one day filling up his car with petrol when he was confronted by a group of young people shouting racist abuse at him.

After they got closer and one of the group realised that they had been shouting at the Newcastle keeper, their attitude suddenly went from abuse to admiration and instead they began asking for autographs.

It was from this experience that Hislop realised he could harness his influence as a professional footballer to make a difference.

Coupled with the power of the beautiful game and his status as a role model, he believed education could be an effective strategy in challenging racism in society.

At the charity’s first ever event, Shaka and fellow team-mate John Beresford visited Gosforth High School in the north east of England to speak to pupils about their experiences in football and society. The rest, as they say, is history.

To this day SRtRC continues to utilise the high-profile status of football and footballers to help tackle racism in society and has also expanded into other sports involving other personalities.

The majority of the campaign’s work is based around the delivery of educational workshops to young people and adults in schools, workplaces and at events held in football stadiums.

Across the UK, SRtRC provides educational sessions to more than 50,000 individuals per year, along with hosting the UK’s largest equalities themed School Competition.

In 2023, SRtRC surpassed the landmark milestone of engaging one million people in these programmes. Some achievement for an idea borne out of a confrontation on a petrol forecourt.

Last Thursday, in collaboration with the charity’s ‘Migration: Making Britain Great’ campaign, a crowded room of speakers and attendees from a diverse array of backgrounds came together in Glasgow to look at ways in which we can use the power of sport, and football in particular, to change how immigration is talked about.

Part of the partnership project between Migrant Voice, SRtRC and IMIX, the ‘Migration: Making Britain Great’ initiative is looking at how we can take the positive messages of diversity we see in sport, and use them to combat the hostile rhetoric around migration in general.

Speakers, including Queen of the South manager Marvin Bartley, CEO of Outdoors For You, Razgar Hassan, and Mahnoor Sultan Campbell from Women on Wheels, spoke passionately about the way in which sports and activities can help break down barriers in communities and bring people together.

For any schools interested in joining the 2024 Schools Competition the deadline is March 4 and entries can be completed at theredcard.org/competitions