Greenhouse Bethwin S.E. Football Club player Emmanuel Ajayi, age 14, with his coach Abdullah Ben-Kmayal

It’s fair to say corporate banking giants and young under-privileged men in London are not groups that are the darlings of the media at present. But Alex Lawson looks at how a cash injection from Goldman Sachs may be just the impetus Greenhouse, the charity behind Bethwin FC, needs.

Whether you believe putting political credence to the public disorder in London in August is simply being kind to opportunitistic greedy individuals or not, there were other emotions clearly on display: anger and frustration. In many cases, that frustration seemed to be borne out of social immobility and a lack of direction. If there’s one thing that West-London based charity Greenhouse offers, it’s direction.

The organisation was set up in 2002 by co-founders Mike de Giorgio, now CEO, and Justin Byam Shaw. Chartered accountant de Giorgio wanted to give young people on a local housing estate something positive to do in the school holidays that year. He persuaded top private school St Paul’s Boys’ School to allow him to use its excellent sports facilities to run a multi-sports programme with the Metropolitan Police. The pilot was such a success and demand was so high that Greenhouse started running other programmes including table tennis and dance, essentially activities that could be done by large groups of young people in limited space.

“We knew that to have maximum impact we needed to work with large numbers of young people in disadvantaged communities and the way to do this was through schools. This led to the development of our unique model of putting full-time sport and performing arts coaches into schools across London’s most disadvantaged boroughs,” said Mike.

The same year, de Giorgio, thrilled by the results of the pilot, sold up his accountancy firm, started the charity and, the two years later joined with Bethwin FC.

Greenhouse Bethwin FC is a community club in Peckham sat between two of South London’s largest and most notorious housing estates (North Peckham and Aylesbury). The club was started by Abdullah Ben-Kmayal, known as Ben, who landed the unsung hero award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards in 2004.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the club has 540 members aged between 8-21 making it the largest competitive community club in the UK. More than half of the coaches are former players and club members and provide one-on-one mentoring and guidance which extends well beyond the pitch. There are no trials and players are selected based on their attendance, timekeeping, attitude and effort and the 54 paid staff – an impressive number for such a project – are supplemented by a team of more than 20 regular volunteers.

“Football at Bethwin has helped young people by giving them something to focus on and something positive to do in their spare time in an area where gangs and crime are rife,” added Mike.

Emmanuel, 14, provides a stark and encouraging view of the turnaround Bethwin can create. “Before I joined Greenhouse, I was always getting into trouble but I blamed the teachers for being racist,” he explained. “Since I started football, my Greenhouse coach has taught me to stop using racism as an excuse for my behaviour. He’s taught me how to respect myself and become a man. My parents and teachers can’t believe how my grades and behaviour have improved.”

But the charity stretches way beyond football with talented coaches, who are used as mentors, plucked from all areas of amateur and professional sport. Last month, the charity announced a major expansion to its programmes’ various Olympic sports in Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets. The project is part of a £3million global initiative sponsored by Goldman Sachs Gives, which will see the expansion of Greenhouse in East London as well as the growth of Right to Play in Africa and the Middle East.

In East London, Greenhouse will deliver full time Olympic sports programmes in secondary and special educational needs schools. Funding from Goldman Sachs Gives will enable more than 1,300 young people from at least 10 schools to get an average of 180 hours coaching, per year, for the next three years and Dina Powell, global head of corporate engagement at Goldman Sachs, described the move as backing a “innovative and impactful” organisation.

At present, Greenhouse is running 12 table tennis, 10 special educational needs (multi-sports), nine basketball, two dance, one judo, one volleyball, one tennis and a drama programme across London alongside Bethwin.

Mike added: “We want to continue to expand to reach more young people and target those who need us most within London’s 11 most deprived boroughs. We plan to start new programmes in new areas and create more hubs linking primary schools with secondary schools so we can work with young people over a long period of time.”

It is hoped the hubs will allow greater interaction between schools and, with Greenhouse’s numbers looking very healthy, increased social activities and links seem all but inevitable.