Bloomsbury Football And The Transformative Power Of Sport: In Conversation With Charlie Hyman

Lara Walsh
5 hours ago
7 min read

Charlie Hyman founded Bloomsbury Football Foundation in 2018, growing it from an initial session of four children to reaching 6500 children weekly across eight London boroughs, with every single player being able to apply for financial support. Charlie was named London Sport’s Inspirational Young Person of the Year in 2021 and was a Sport Industry 30 under 30 NextGen Leader. STRAND sat down with Charlie to learn more about Bloomsbury and the life-changing work they carry out.

What is Bloomsbury, and what is its mission?

Bloomsbury Football Foundation is a charity, currently based in London, but with plans to scale across the country. Our mission is to transform young people’s lives using the power of football. We focus our programmes on those who need our help the most, but we do it in such a way that everyone is welcome.

We believe football is so magical because it's something that everyone loves. It’s already ingrained in our culture; it’s the most popular sport in the world. But beyond that, football offers so much more. It’s a place to go, a way to meet people from different backgrounds, a game that teaches you to win, lose, and communicate. It builds confidence and teamwork, and provides adult role models in the form of a coach. If you were to design the ideal social intervention, it would look something like football.

Bloomsbury’s job is to run this at scale - high-quality, inspirational, sustainable, accessible - ideally for those who need it the most, but ultimately for everyone.

What do you see as the biggest barriers to access in London?

The top one is cost. If you're a seven-year-old who wants to play sport outside of school, it's hundreds of pounds a year. From fees, kit, boots, sports bras - countless expenses make participation difficult for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Travel is another barrier - a mix of the cost of it, but also the time for parents to leave work. Safety is also a concern, particularly with young girls travelling in the dark.

Beyond these, for girls, we’re still predominantly in a society where people don’t see football as ‘for them’. Most girls in the school playground probably hear once a week that they shouldn't be playing. There are also religious barriers which have traditionally prevented girls from participating. So, I think there are endless different barriers, and we're trying to break them down and provide opportunities where everyone feels welcome.

In what ways can you see Bloomsbury's impact beyond statistics?

I guess every time I go down to a session, I see it. For some young people, it can be as simple as looking forward to this hour every week. Then, for some, it's more than that - the coach asked them how their week was at school, and maybe that's the adult they can confide in, trust, and raise issues with. And for some, it's a complete transformation. We've had a child who, aged 10, attempted suicide. Their relationship with a coach they looked up to gave hope for the future and turned that spiralling negativity into positivity. That connection potentially saved their life.

It's a broad spectrum that depends on the young person, their circumstances, and which parts of the programme make the difference to them.

From the beginning, what were the biggest challenges Bloomsbury faced, and how did you combat these?

I remember walking back from the first training session that I ran, and only four children turned up. I thought, Is this going to be successful? Do I really want to do this? But through persistence and working with local schools, we managed to grow the numbers and attract more young people.

Fundraising is always a challenge for any charity. We need money to run programmes, and while there are lots of great charities out there doing amazing work, there is only so much funding available from companies, donors, and the government. A challenge specific to us is finding spaces to play in such a packed urban area. There are limited outdoor spaces, particularly ones that young people could ever afford to book. Our job is to democratise access to spaces for children who might live in small flats with no open areas. This could be their only chance to run around outside.

We have broadly five types of fundraising: revenue from paying children and schools, government sources, high-net-worth individuals, trusts and foundations, and brand partnerships. Sitting at the centre of all is a relationship-led approach. We're not doing big advertising campaigns; we don't have thousands of people giving £10 a month. It's people introducing us to people, researching individuals, building up long-term relationships, getting them to see what we do, feel the impact, and build trust in us.

In terms of impact, could you go into more detail about the mental health aspect?

We measure impact through longitudinal tracking every six months, asking young people and parents questions like: ‘How much more confident do you feel?’ ‘How much more likely are you to try something again when you think it's really hard and you couldn't do it?’ The data we get back is really positive - 92% of the children say they feel more confident having participated in our programmes.

Our approach to mental health is very much preventative and early intervention. The more we can get young people into regular physical activity, socialising with other children, and feeling a sense of belonging, the better. It’s a tough time for a lot of young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. They're spending so much time on their screens, consuming the worst content. They often lack a positive adult role model and opportunities to go outside, play, and connect. Football is one of, if not the best, ways to counter those evils. It subtly reinforces all the positivity around being a teenage boy; you should be confident, you should meet other people, and you should look up to good adult role models. The key is using the vehicle of football in a subtle way to do this.

Following COVID, how does Bloomsbury help develop children’s social skills?

Massively, particularly with mixing with children from different backgrounds. Our programmes are designed so that everyone is welcome on all programmes, meaning you get children from completely different religions and socio-economic backgrounds interacting. Coming together every week, they improve communication that helps them off the pitch - in school, university, and work. Football, again, does that amazingly in a subtle way.

18% of the children pay full price, meaning their families can afford organised sport outside of school. The remaining 82% are subsidised, paying only a few pounds. We think it's important that everyone pays something; we actually tested it where it was free and saw much lower attendance and uptake.

Most of these children are receiving free school meals or government benefits. We don't run intrusive vetting processes on people's financials; we trust the government's vetting process and target areas with high deprivation using the IDACI (Indices of Deprivation Affecting Children Index).

Beyond that, we have specific programmes where we feel a more targeted approach is necessary, such as for recently arrived refugees and asylum seekers. These children often live in temporary accommodation hotels, so we go to the hotel, pick them up, walk them to sessions, provide a meal, and walk them back.

What trends have you seen over the last few years with girls' uptake?

We‘ve seen an increase since the Lionesses’ success, but actually not as much as media reports. Many young girls - particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds - do not watch the Lionesses, don't know the players, and haven't watched them win. They're much more likely to attend because a friend is going than because of role models on TV.

We've made a really conscious effort to get more girls involved. At the moment, a third of the young people we work with every week are girls, and we are aiming for 50% by 2028. We're already engaging more girls than anyone else in the country, which is amazing, but we're only scratching the surface. There are many more girls out there who need opportunities.

I think there are two buckets of challenges. Part of our strategy is changing perceptions - we did a billboard campaign across London, and had girls as mascots at the men's Champions League final. The other end of the spectrum is the local element - helping organise carpools, making sure facilities are well lit and near transport, providing period products and subsidised sports bras - all these things you wouldn't need to do for a boys’ session.

Could you explain a bit about your disability programme?

So we started with pan-disability sessions to understand demand. Obviously, within that, there is a huge range, even amongst physical disabilities. We’ve split out a bit now, for example, tomorrow we've got a football festival at Tottenham Hotspur's Training Grounds for children who are blind or visually impaired.

But I guess it comes back to making sure we offer something for every young person. The programme is still in its early days, and there are many more children to support. We don't do wheelchair football, but in the future, we'd love to. The skills children learn are transformative - a highly autistic child learning to interact in a group and follow instructions can be life-changing.

How would you say sport has impacted your life, and how has that carried into Bloomsbury?

I still play football every Sunday morning with friends, and I look forward to it all week. It's the time to get outside, de-stress from work, and connect. The changing room before the game, catching up, winning and losing together - it’s full of skills and experiences. I think a lot of my experiences of playing sports myself have made me a better leader and professional. Everything from public speaking to resilience to working as a team - I think part of why I set this up and believe so strongly in it is because I have felt the benefit myself.

How should a child feel, in your opinion, when they walk away from a session?

We have an internal phrase: ‘sweaty smiles’. Against a more formal checklist, we break it into three: play, belong, and progress. Have they had an opportunity to play - feel joy, run around, exercise? Have they felt a sense of belonging - interacted with people, felt part of the community? And have they progressed - have they progressed their skills, confidence, mental well-being, all the different things that we know that sport does? If they meet those three, we’re happy.