Football’s Best Kept Secret
In October 2009 John Halpin earned a local honour of sorts, finishing 35th in a poll to find the top 100 Carlisle United players of all time. The Evening News and Star who published the poll noted; “Gifted Glaswegian winger who shone in 1980s, including stunning solo goal against Blackburn, now the Blues’ popular community officer.” Halpin – who provided some of the best news on the pitch in a lean spell between 1984 and 1991 – is remembered for his ambition and work rate, along with the skills he brought to his attacking wing play. He came back from three broken legs (his left twice and one break to his right leg), and was one of those players who’d go at the game, and an opponent as if he expected to come off best. It’s likely that many who saw him play would skip over the words “popular community officer” quickly and not give too much thought to what they meant.
The good news is that John Halpin leads a team who have brought his fearless “can do” attitude to a range of work in the Carlisle area, taking football to places it never ventured 20 years ago. Halpin took some time recently to answer a few questions about this work.
1 - How long has the Football in the Community scheme been running at Carlisle and - in general - what changes have taken place between its start and the present day?
FITC has been running for around 25 years, started with 6 clubs in the North West and expanded from there, our scheme has been going for about 20 years. The original half dozen clubs included a few of the local rivals the Blue Army has enjoyed a lively relationship with over the years; Oldham Athletic, Bury, Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End were all in at the start.
2 - How did you get involved and what is your current job title?
My current title is Community Manager, I first got involved through David Wilkes who asked me if I would be interested in taking the job, a meeting was arranged with Aidan McCaffrey, I was then offered the position. I stayed there until I ended up involved with the first team with David Wilkes, I left for a while but Paul Simpson asked me back in to become involved with Football in the Community again and I was happy to get back to it. If you look at what I’ve done, and what has happened to Football in the Community in the 20 years of my involvement it has changed beyond recognition. Part of the motivation from the Football League to start it came from the poor public image of football, to be honest, when I first got involved, it mainly involved taking a few balls and a few bibs to a school and putting on a free training session. These days it’s probably one of the best kept secrets in football. We do loads of different things, turn over about £200,000 a year and get involved in all parts of the local community.
3 - As near as possible; what does a "typical" day involve for you?
Well, there isn’t really one kind of typical day. There are a lot of things we keep doing over and over again, but the days, the things we do, vary a lot. On a fairly normal day I’ll have an 8.00am start, with phone calls e-mails mail etc, planning the coaching day ahead we will work in around 4-6 schools on an average day supporting teaching staff with PPA work and After School Clubs.
4 - How many other people are involved in the FITC scheme as employees or people who volunteer?
We have five full time, ten casual and four volunteer workers, we also take secondary school pupils for their work experience.
5 - There are obviously a lot of people helped by your work, if we take one example how did you first get involved with William Swailes and what happened after that to get him to international selection?
William Swailes is a local lad who came to us through our Disability Officer Paul Jennings. Paul met William through Football for All and he was invited for England trials through James Rennie School and Carlisle Mencap. We then nominated him for the award he won ( Every Player Counts) North West, at the NEC in early May.
But helping people like William is a small part of the work we do these days. In general this is about getting out in the community and letting people take ownership of their fitness. Our work is about using football to raise people’s awareness of what they can achieve, making a positive difference through football in a number of ways.
One thing we’re doing at the moment is working with the homeless. We held training for local homeless lads and took players to Manchester for trials for the Homeless World Cup. This is held annually and the venue is moved around Europe. It’s a great way of giving homeless people a focus and a sense of their self-worth. Lots of people don’t realise how positive this can be. They’d also be surprised at the skill levels we see. Obviously, when we start working with homeless lads the fitness can be a problem and we have to let them play the game at their pace, but the best footballers in this group are really good. I do think it’s possible that in the future this scheme will turn up a player capable of signing a professional contract with a club in England.
6 - How satisfying is the FITC work compared to the other posts you have held at Carlisle, including your time as a player?
Playing is obviously what we all want to do, and I’d still rate my time as a professional footballer as the best working days of my life. I’ve seen the world doing something I loved, so that is special. But working in the community gives you so many options; it tackles disability, social inclusion, homelessness, racism…if you can make a small difference it is worthwhile and this job has changed and challenged me for all the time I’ve done it. In football you never know what’s coming up but if I was doing this kind of work for the rest of my working life I would be happy with it.
7 - The "community" involved in your work is always going to be close to Brunton Park. If members of the Blue Army who live far away from Carlisle were interested in helping, what could they do?
Help in any way they can. Obviously, we are always looking for financial help but any sort of support is always appreciated.
8 - What important aspects of FITC have we missed out with the questions above?
I think I have pretty much covered all aspects, I could go on forever with all the different activities we have been involved with because this is a big subject now, covering so many different areas of life and the community. The one thing I think worth mentioning is that our history has taught us that Football in the Community will keep growing and changing, there are new things coming on board every season. So if we had this chat in five years time there would be something to discuss that we haven’t mentioned this time.
John Halpin was talking to Neil Nixon, author of the Blueseason books chronicling events in the history of Carlisle United.
Blueseason Kindle edition:
Blueseason printed edition: