Two Arsenal Heroes Share Their Stories

0:16It's Rice, what a goal! Declan Rice with an absolute rocket with a free kick!

0:31How do you celebrate the heroes that represent Arsenal brilliantly? You talk to some of the ones that never step on the pitch. This is the Arsenal Vision post-match podcast. My name is Eli Smith. You can block me under a little bit of a stumble there, but hello, everybody. We're going to talk about some Arsenal heroes that never step on the pitch. Well, step on the pitch, but, you know, not for Arsenal wearing the kit playing in the games. They've been on pitches and some of them are quite good at football. But we're going to talk to Freddie Hudson and Drew Tyler today. And they are immense heroes representing the Arsenal badge.

1:03These are people that do great work in the North London community and do great work in Zattery Camp. Freddie has been associated with the club for decades, working at the hub, working with Arsenal in the community, a trustee the Arsenal Foundation someone who's been absolutely essential to the work being done Zattery Camp Drew Tyler who works with the CDP coaches who has been to the camp himself is also going to speak to you today so two really important interviews that I think you'll love and I hope you'll take the time to listen to just give you pride in the badge pride in the people who don't always get the credit they deserve at Arsenal Football Club but are a big part of why the badge means more than just what happens on the pitch if you give you have a chance to win tickets to the Fulham game in a VIP box.

1:45You will have a chance to win tickets to a Champions League semifinal should we qualify. So a lot on the line. If you give, you have a chance to win. But more importantly, if you give, you have the chance to help children who need it. I cannot emphasize this enough. The programs in the camp that supported children have almost entirely fallen by the wayside. And the Arsenal Foundation remains in Zattery Camp with the Coaching for Life program, helping young people there develop the skills they need to avoid the pitfalls of life in that camp and grow into successful adults who can someday now return to their nation, be part of rebuilding Syria and be part of a virtuous circle that helps all of this start over and improve and get better generation on after generation on.

2:30And that's the thing that's so beautiful when you help children is if you can help them grow into successful adults, then you create an opportunity to improve things not just for that one person, but for generations that follow. So please help us. These young boys and young girls need our help. You can go to the Just Giving page. The link is in the show notes. You can go to the auction site. The link is in the show notes. You can give. You have a chance to win. We can smash our goal and we can keep this program funded for the full five-year phase that it is currently going through. So please help.

3:02Thanks to everyone who already has. If you cannot give, of course we understand. Then simply share this with someone. Let someone know about it so that it raises awareness for the great things you're doing, for the great things the club are doing. And by the way, if it gives us a little karma right now, I think Arsenal Football Club could use some karma. So let's do it for that as well. But thanks, everybody. I'm going to turn it over to myself and Freddie and myself and Drew for these interviews. I hope you enjoy them and love you very much. So let's turn it over now to Freddie Hudson. It's always a pleasure to have a friend on the podcast, but it's even more of a pleasure when that friend has made such an impact in the community and with our club.

3:38And so I want to reintroduce you or introduce you for the first time if you've not heard from him before to Freddie Hudson, who is a community director for Arsenal Football Club and vice chair of the Arsenal Foundation, someone I feel privileged to call a friend and have had the chance to see the work that Coaching for Life is doing in person. So without further ado, hello, Freddie. Hello, Elliot. And thanks again for having me on. It's a huge privilege for me to come on. And it's a privilege for us to have you on because you have been a stalwart in the North London community doing really important work.

4:11I think without a lot of fanfare, it's fair to say for people that really need it, knocking doors, going person to person, you are absolutely instrumental in the creation of the hub, which serves the North London community. And then in the, not just development, but promotion of the Coaching for Life program so that it could flourish and ultimately wind up at a point where our community became aware of it and had the privilege of supporting it. So before we get into the Zattery component of this, I'd love to just get your update on the hub, maybe re-explain to people what it is and how the work is going there.

4:43For sure. Yeah, yeah. The Arsenal hub is based next to Emirates Stadium. I'm sitting in one of the rooms in the hub now. Yeah, for people watching, you've got a great view out of your office. If it was just a little higher, you could see the game while doing work. yeah no it's a great view and you know on that note this is one of the rooms that we use for different reasons is education classes that takes place in this room there's employability work skills programs for those that are a fair distance from the job market it's a room where it's the safe space there's some mental health counseling goes on in here mentoring um not only a safe space it's a place where trust is built it's a place where and relationships really develop.

5:26And once that's achieved, it's one of those places of many that we use at Arsenal where opportunities are unlocked. So great view. And it's part of the inspiration, being in a room like this with the backdrop there. But the work's going well and the stuff that goes on in this hub and multiple venues in the local community, it's going really well. And the big focus at the moment is to continue deepening that work with communities surrounding this football club, you know, on the doorstep that are struggling in one way. And we've got a sharp focus on at the moment on, you know, sort of measuring the impact that we're having.

6:07And part of that is going forward is to, in an Arsenal way, with an Arsenal footprint all over it, is to measure the importance of spaces like this, the importance of pitches that we develop, the importance of community centres that we invest in and work from. and on top of that measuring the impact of the relationships that are built those role models that trust that's built and measuring the impact of the opportunities and the connectedness that is unlocked so exciting times ahead definitely yeah i'd i'd say going to the the hub it is incredible to see the work being done by our club that a lot of people just don't understand and is happening.

6:53And there is a significant, I think, responsibility for an organization like a football club that touches so many people around the world and is a citizen of a local community to give back. The work you do really is the catalyst for the club being able to do that locally, but also in places around the world. And Arsenal Football Club is a global institution. and so as everybody listening to this by now is well aware there's work being done in the Zadarif refugee camp in Jordan we've talked at length about that work but I'd love to just hear you maybe describe for people that aren't familiar how you first came in contact with it and the personal experience you had of seeing what was being done there and I know it was very moving for you so I think it's always powerful when you share why that was such a moving experience yeah my first um time in the camp was before the program actually started we went on a recce um to a couple of venues one in indonesia and jakarta where we had plans to do some coaching for life work there and once the program was developed um but also in zattery so yeah it was it's strange at that time there's about 120 000 refugees there that's It's not quite half of that, but it's just over half of that now, I think, in terms of population now.

8:16At the time, there was armed military and armed police guarding the camp. You know, my first driving through the camp doors, high security, tanks, armed police, military as well. And it was a bit eerie, if I'm honest. And you go in there and there's barbed wire everywhere. restricted movement within the camp. So it was daunting. And, you know, my take on that, we spent several days in the camp meeting and moving around the camp, trying to get a feel for it. And, you know, how, you know, a program, a collaboration between Save the Children and Arsenal would contribute, would support those communities in the camp.

9:04And I quickly realized on a very different, in a very different way and maybe on a different level. But that population in that camp were struggling with what they'd been through, with what they'd fled. They were traumatised, clearly. But then equating that to back here, and I'm not comparing the two by any stretch of the imagination, Elliot, but we come across communities and individuals and groups are equally traumatised, you know, for different reasons. And that might be because of the level, at a young age, the level of violence that our participants see and witness as young people. It might be because of what's gone on in the home.

9:51It might be because some of the real negativity that they are, that's wrapped around them for no fault of their own that they're born into maybe. And it's, you know, it has an impact on them, whether that's what that Syrian community have experienced or whether what some of the communities here have experienced. And it's the role of the football club within their world, right? It's the role they play to support them. And you've heard me say it several times, and I do feel a bit like a broken record, but we don't go into any community with a magic wand or a solution. But the approaches that we've developed with our partners, whether they're local partners here, statutory services, voluntary sector partners, or whether they're partners like NGOs, save the children in the Zaatari camp.

10:41We found a way to engage, to create that safe environment, those pitches, those community centres in the camp. We found a way to get them to trust Arsenal and our partners, and we found a way to unlock some opportunities for them. And what that does, it helps those individuals, those groups, those communities cope a little bit better with the challenges they're facing. I think the thing that really struck me, Freddie, to your point is what the club means to people in that situation. I cannot emphasize how separate and apart from the world they feel and how desperately they want to be connected to the world.

11:31And so Arsenal, the badge, becomes the way they feel connected to the world. It's not just the educational work that's done with the young people. It's not just the camaraderie they build with peers so they can develop relationships that they otherwise wouldn't have. And those relationships become protectors for one another, become responsible for one another, provide each other a framework for building a life and an infrastructure that helps them, you know, develop resiliency against some of the malign influences that exist in their environment. But it is the connection to the world. And we are reaching a critical moment where there is for the first time really, the hope that someday there is a life outside the camp back in their home in Syria, but they must be capable of returning to that life, they must be able to go and participate in life in the ways that we sometimes take for granted.

12:22And so the skills they develop in the Coaching for Life program form the foundation of that capability. But I think it is also that first seed of excitement for the wider world. Imagine being born in and growing up in, as many of these kids have been, a refugee camp that is not connected to the outside world. that can be incredibly dislocating and make it impossible to even have an understanding of what it feels like to leave that place and so arsenal becomes a way that they can start to understand the outside world to connect to it and that was incredibly moving for me because this is a badge that means something to me it's community it's friendship it's obviously sporting aspirations which which is the engine that drives all this but to see it mean something a little bit different to these young people in terms of how it connects them to the world.

13:12That was very powerful for me. And so I think it also made me feel really proud of the club. And I'm wondering if how I'm articulating this, you know, and what you've said sort of align in the way that it creates a bond that is about a connection that transcends what the sport is really about. Yeah, definitely. And it's tough, you know. So we're lucky, most of us in this community, most of them, very lucky. They grew up and they do okay, managed to stay in school, managed to come out with some half decent grades and become half decent citizens, et cetera, et cetera. But it's those pockets of communities that struggle for whatever reason, that need a belonging.

13:56Their belonging needs to be more positive than it actually is. And you've been to that camp, Elliot. Yeah. You've felt yourself that that struggle, you've seen it in their eyes. You've seen it, but you've also seen the laughter. You've also seen the togetherness. You've also seen the belonging that we've been able with Save the Children to be able to galvanize there. And it's powerful. It's really strong. And, you know, trying to relate it locally here. We started about 15 years ago here with a local charity, brilliant charity called Freedom from Torture, who received torture survivors from all over the world and who had experienced horrific, horrific torture.

14:40And over many, many years, we worked with Freedom from Torture and, you know, their clients, as they call them, but, you know, the individuals there. And what they told us after many years was they were just playing back to us, that belonging. how important Arsenal were to them. And they'd fled, often many of them individually, left their families, left their homes, all that they knew, and ended up in London. And the connection with Arsenal, the family feel, the belonging, the sense of acceptance, the nonjudgmental response they get. and one in particular that he told us that if, for him, he didn't belong when he first came.

15:25He came as an unaccompanied child, was homeless for a bit, sleeping on a bench in Finsbury Park, connected with freedom from torture, through that joint partnership, spent several years on the programme. And he told us that he felt that if Arsenal accepted him, he felt that Britain accepted him. Now, that may have been a bit misguided, but that's kind of the sentiment that was playing back. That's interesting. That's when we realized the kind of weight of responsibility that you're talking about, Elliot, that for this football club, we can't go into communities like that, like Touch. We can't go dip in and dip out and be there for six months, a year, and then leave them.

16:10you know we've we've just got to go on a journey with them be transparent in what we bring to them with no deep promises but the trust that kind of galvanize galvanizes with those individuals is so so powerful and we we feel it exactly every time we go back you know it's you know you're not forgetting us they they don't want to they don't want we said this on the last time i i came on And Elliot, they're strong messages. They don't want to be forgotten. And, you know, the fact that Arsenal keep returning is a really powerful, trusted message. Think about it. Someone from another part of the world, from England, with the Arsenal badge on their shirt, from the wider world, comes in to teach them football.

16:59that small act of kindness is a massive impact in their sense of hope and aspiration for what their future can be and that they're cared for and that there's an awareness of them, to your point about not being forgotten. And I think you made a point that I just want to touch on. Things have gotten so hyperpolitical around almost every topic. And the word refugee is charged with political implications. These aren't refugees. These are children who are growing up in a challenging situation and have almost no one looking out for their best interest. And so a program like Coaching for Life is helping children, you know, forget whether they're refugees or this, that, the other thing.

17:41They're children who need to build a life and are in an environment where they rely on others to provide services and access that can help them build that life and go on to be part of a productive society that benefits everybody long term, right? So I think, you know, as a parent, and I hate to always reduce down to my personal experience, but as a parent, seeing how every day, the little things that I'm able to deliver to my children in terms of love and support and compassion and education and understanding and protection and a sense of security and safety helps shape who they are. If you strip all of that away, it's very difficult to understand how someone can navigate a life from childhood to adulthood.

18:24And so a program like Coaching for Life, the connection to the wider world, the just fun and distraction of playing football, the friendships they build in those green spaces, the resiliency skills that they're taught, that's replacing a lot of the things that otherwise would be absent. And I I cannot tell you when I went there how impressed I was with these young people, how much of a life they build with so little in comparison to what we take for granted. So as a final point, just on the mechanics of running a program like this, I think it is important to emphasize the work you do in the hub and the work that you do in the local community is critically important.

18:58But there are ring-fenced monies, there are ring-fenced resources that are provided to the local programs through partnerships with the league, for example, the Premier League and beyond. There is no such thing for what's happening in Zattery. It is completely donor funded, and donor funded in large part by this community's support. So, I just want to maybe quickly, as a final point, kind of emphasize why something like this is so important, because it maybe thought, oh, well, there's billions of pounds in this sport, and we should be able to help everyone. And in some respects, there is good work being done to make sure that some of the money trickles down to local communities.

19:40But for programs that are for their field like this, it's entirely donor funded. It is, Elliot. And do you know what? You and your community through Arsenal Vision Podcast, you've been the reason. And I'm not saying this lightly and I mean this. You've been the reason why we've been able to maintain and sustain the workings actually. you know well you do know you've you've raised over a million pound for us over that period already um and that's enabled us and save the children to deliver what we deliver and it's so important and i i can't thank you enough elliot and i should have said this is on my notes to say this at the at the start of the the interview here but um it is it's it's vital and everything costs everything costs sadly um and it's it's down to you elliot and it's down to your community the fact that we as arsenal and as say the children have been able to deliver what we've been delivering now i mean obviously i think everyone in the community wants to say thank you for that but also that um there is a tremendous self uh sense of personal gratification that comes from being able to support something like this and to know that we're a big part of, and when I say we, I mean this entire community, a big part of its continued existence.

20:59Look, you are a busy man doing a lot of good work and I don't want to keep you much longer. I will simply say that I appreciate you and I appreciate that you do work that makes the badge bigger, that makes our connection to the club more meaningful, that we have aspirations beyond our sporting ambitions that are to feel a part of something that makes a positive impact in the world and to the extent that Arsenal does that a lot of that is down to the work you and your team do so I'm going to be talking to Drew Tyler next who is more tactically on the ground in the hub and in Zattery camp working with young people and I'm excited to hear his updates but I do want to thank you for everything you and your group does to make us proud of the club that we are all supporters of so thank you thank you Freddie.

21:42Elliot it's an absolute pleasure and the last thing I will say is there's a big drive at the moment and a big recognition and with our supporters not just in the UK, across the world, that this space, you know, through the foundation and the community work, we've got a role and that role is really important with our supporters. We can help deepen the pride that all of our supporters already have in the club. You know, because of what goes on on that pitch, we are hugely proud as fans and supporters. But to connect our supporters to this space, that gives us an opportunity to just drive that little bit deeper.

22:18what this club stands for, what it means. And for all of us to have a deeper pride in this football club can only be a good thing. So thank you, Elliot, and thank you to everybody at Arsenal Vision Podcast. Well, thank you, Freddie. As I said, I can't wait to see you in the near future. It's always a pleasure to see you, to speak to you, and to get an update on what you're doing. And I hope everybody has enjoyed hearing from you. And up next, they're going to hear from Drew Tyler. So thanks again, Freddie. Thank you. okay now it is my pleasure to bring a footballer onto the program all right well maybe not for arsenal but quite a good football in his own right i've seen him run around on the pitch and he can do some things but more importantly he is the program manager for the coaching development program and for coaching for life in zattery someone who has a tremendous connection to the young people that are helped by this program is so fun to see when he gets onto those pitches in the refugee camp uh the way the kids light up the way he lights up someone who has a real passion for this.

23:14We're very lucky to have him associated with these programs. And with that, I will reintroduce you to someone you've heard on the podcast before, and that's Drew Tyler. Hello, Drew. Hello. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you again, because it means we get an update. I did introduce you as a footballer. Are you still getting out on the pitch much or not so much with family life and all your work? Yeah, I'm still trying. Being slow forever means that getting slower as I get older, doesn't really happen so uh yeah i'm still doing a little bit if olivier gerud can still be playing at the top level i don't see any reason why why your lack of pace should hold you back through no reason very similar in profile yeah yeah maybe not profile like visually but profile in terms of player development yeah uh okay let's get into the real stuff so um obviously you do great work with the coaching development program um do you want to just remind people what that is before we get into how the program in Zattery is going?

24:13Yeah, we take a group of volunteer coaches every year into our community department in London next to the stadium. And we work with them throughout the season. They access lots of coach education through our community team and they get lots of opportunities to go out and practice that live experience across all of our different areas of work. We try to support them into future careers in coaching or teaching or youth work-related areas. And some of those coaches will get opportunities to go out and experience our work in Jordan or other areas that we work in internationally as a club. Yeah. I have met some of the coaches who had the chance to go out to Zattery, and they take a big leap of faith.

25:09These are young people who in some cases have never been more than a few miles from home who are going halfway around the world and going to a totally new place where they don't speak the language, where the food's unfamiliar, where the environment, the weather is certainly unfamiliar, just to give of themselves and to give back. and so really inspiring the work that they do. You have been to Zattery a lot to help bring CDP coaches up to speed there to see how the program is going. Do you know how many trips you're up to at this point? It must be around 15 or 16, I think, over the last eight years.

25:48That's incredible. And over that time, anything you want to highlight as a major change or evolution that you're seeing in either the impact it's making, the extent to which the program has really sharpened focus, areas where you see the biggest improvement and opportunity there from when you first went to where it is today? Yeah, I think when we, well, I think first thing to say is that wherever I've been, wherever I've coached in the world, you put kids on a football pitch and it's kids on a football pitch. It doesn't matter if that's in a refugee camp in Zattery, if that's in the hub in London or anywhere.

26:31Ten kids on a football pitch are going to play five a side. But I suppose what is different and what I've definitely seen develop is attitudes of coaches towards what good coaching looks like and what good relationships look like with young people. there was definitely some stuff at the beginning where coaches wanted to tell kids what to do and thought that they had to keep them in line um i think we've helped them to develop a more playful child-centered approach where um the kids are playing lots of different fun silly games and through that they're being able to learn and develop their kind of teamwork skills and their emotional regulation, being able to deal with things that happen on and off the pitch through silly little games that they've played together and through developing trusting relationships on the pitch.

27:36That's really developed across the years, I think. um yeah yeah the other thing i'd say is with the with the females on on the program that the attitudes towards girls playing football and towards women coaching footballers have come on massively in the in the time that we've been there well and that's something too that you know again really just to emphasize this it's it's great that women are playing football right and and it's important that the program has achieved gender parity but i think it's really important to, I think, re-emphasize that the reason this becomes so important is not just so that they can have a place where they can be a young person, a child, right?

28:18And just play and celebrate, but the importance of building friendships and how those friendships protect you from some of the influences that are not so positive in the camp and the extent to which these young women develop an identity that allows them to push back against some of the expectations, you know, like marrying young, you know, I remember speaking to a mother who said, I, I was in a child marriage. I don't want that for my daughter. And I never really understood or had a voice to know how to speak out against that. She's developing that capability through what she's doing with the coaching for life program.

28:53So it's not just about young girls having fun playing football, which it is, and that's important, but it's about how vulnerable they are, in particular in that space and how much stronger it makes them through their participation yeah i think the the beautiful thing about this program is that we we tackle oh not maybe not tackle but we we approach certain challenges that young people will face through things that happen all the time in a football match so we'll we'll work on uh communication techniques. We've had girls tell us that by learning about some of this stuff on a football pitch, they've had the confidence to say to their sisters, like, if we all do these chores in the house together, it will mean that we can get to the football pitch quicker.

29:50And then we can go and spend more time with our friends there. And then that can go on to a bigger scale. and if they've got bigger sort of life decisions or challenges whether they want to challenge something that they disagree with at school or in a relationship that they feel the confidence to be able to do that appropriately and assertively in a way that isn't going to endanger them. And they've learned that through some of these, they've been able to practice that through some of these games that we've played on the pitch. it. And yeah, I think that's a really beautiful element of our program and our work.