One of our main goals for FBA is to run aspirational events for young people – aiming to provide Opportunities and inspire Possibilities – we call these FBA OPs. Not easy during Covid, but here we go!
For our first talk, who better to inspire young South Londoners, than a South Londoner with decades as a sports professional under his belt. We are so grateful to Chris Powell for taking time out of his busy schedule coaching the Tottenham Hotspur Academy and English National Team!!!
Chris told us that the average length of a Footballer’s playing career is 8 years. So, in our eyes, his record of 24 years, including 5 caps for England, followed by post-player roles including Manager, Coach and pundit, make him a true legend!
With his wonderful down to earth personality, Chris happily presented our FBA Winter Season Awards, then showered us with insights and stories, complimented by a fabulous selection of pictures and newspaper clippings, and then Q&A with some great questions from the audience. We discovered from RC’s Director of Sport, Paul Langan, that Nigel Reo-Coker came to Riddlesdown Collegiate – Chris even had a picture of them playing together!
Does it matter that Chris is a footballer and not a cricketer? No way! Chris compounded FBA’s view that desire and determination are some of the most important values, and rejection and failure are all experiences which contribute to increasing resilience – essential to succeed in any walk of life.
Thank you to everyone who attended and helped raise £300 in our Raffle – all FBA funds go straight back to help make us better! We all had fun taking pics at the end too – you’ll recognise a few FBA staff, as well as Paul Langan – and maybe see yourself too!
<img decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" data-id="4349" src="https://mljci5afjpas.i.optimole.com/cb:-Q4c~27fb6/w:1000/h:563/q:mauto/https://firstballacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FBA-collage.png" alt="" class="wp-image-4349"/>
<img decoding="async" width="1024" height="579" data-id="4351" src="https://mljci5afjpas.i.optimole.com/cb:-Q4c~27fb6/w:1000/h:565/q:mauto/https://firstballacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-15-15.58.58-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-4351"/>
<img decoding="async" width="1014" height="590" data-id="4345" src="https://mljci5afjpas.i.optimole.com/cb:-Q4c~27fb6/w:auto/h:auto/q:mauto/https://firstballacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-15-15.59.46.png" alt="" class="wp-image-4345"/>