Margate star Wayne Wilson puts the Thanet community first

Saturday 11th June 2011

MARGATE midfielder Wayne Wilson tells teenagers in Football Academies to gain qualifications so they can cope with life in the real world if their dreams of becoming a professional footballer are dashed, writes Stephen McCartney.

Canterbury resident Wilson, 25, has been appointed as the head of Football in the Community at Margate Football Club and he is already making his mark.

Originally with Sorrento under 18’s, based in his home town of Perth, Australia, he moved to England to join the academy of then Premier League club Charlton Athletic, playing for their youth side in season 2002-03.

He dropped into non-league football to play for Bishop’s Stortford, Stevenage Borough, Thurrock and Basingstoke Town to gain experience, before coming to Kent to play for Bromley and then Margate. He took temporary charge for two games alongside John Keister after Mark Butler resigned from the Hartsdown Park club in February 2010.

The Ryman Premier League club issued the following statement, on their website www.margate-fc.com, outlining their ambitions for the scheme:

“Through the programme, we aim to deliver sessions of a high standard and that are a value to the community.

“In our plan, Margate Football Club will become the hub of the community which we will achieve by working closely with local and national authorities to deliver sessions that benefit the whole of Thanet.

“We know that Thanet is an area in desperate need for initiatives that offer the opportunity for the community to come together and make where we live a friendly and active place to be; where every child, young adult and adult feels valued and can contribute to the community. We will seek to achieve this ambitious goal through the best sport on the planet – football.

“Catering for children from the age of three all the way up to young adults who are aspiring to become valued members of the community, our activities are designed to bring benefit to them and the wider community, perhaps even as future employees of Margate Football Club.

“We can offer a wide range of activities from toddlers’ soccer to numeracy and literacy sessions. The activities developed under the Margate Football in the Community programme are designed to:

-           Raise education achievement
-           Create pathways to employment
-           Build healthier lifestyles
-           Bring communities together
-           Reduce anti-social behaviour and crime

Wilson contacted www.kentishfootball.co.uk to publicise the good work that he and Margate Football Club are doing in their local community.

“It’s a full-time role, the role is called Head of Football in the Community and it’s just continuing on the work from the Margate Learning Zone – www.m-l-z.co.uk – but in a different way,” explained Wilson.

“It’s going to involve the emphasis of football, using it within local schools and local communities to try and raise the profile of Margate Football in the Community and give the community an opportunity to take part in sessions or lessons that they haven’t been offered before and try to improve literacy, self-esteem issues and all-round issues in children and young adults really.”

Wilson reflected on his background, saying, “When I left Charlton, this was probably five-years-ago, I started working as a casual coach for Charlton Athletic in their Football Community Scheme and that led in to more work and I was appointed in a similar role in the Canterbury area on a full-time basis two years ago, so I have got a good background in this area and it’s about time I embarked on this new exciting project where the world is our oyster basically – or in Thanet really.

“I’ll be going off-site into schools, I won’t just be working in the Learning Zone. I will be going into various different parks, youth centres, places like that to offer children and young adults our services.”

Basically getting youngsters off the streets and educating them football and life skills.

“There’s going to be a social inclusion side to the community scheme where instead of children getting up to their usual misdemeanours we’ll go into a public court or ball court and offer them structured sport for an hour and a half in the evening and we’ll be going into the hotspots of Thanet where crime and anti-social behaviour is quite common.

“We always go into these things like this with our eyes open, but we feel there’s a general need for a role in Thanet.

“At Margate Football Club we’ve got the Learning Zone, the new ground is being completed, hopefully in a couple of years’ time, it’s going to be an exciting time and we think the timings right now to go to introduce this role. We’re going through all avenues to get ourselves a bit of publicity to make people aware of it.

“When a school or a youth centre or a collection of children have some time available, where adults think what they can do with children, instead of thinking something else, they could call Margate Football Club who might be doing something now, to do a different type of activity.

“We want to be the first people on their minds and on their lips.”

If you have children in the area and they are bored, then get them down to the Hartsdown 5’s at Hartsdown Park, which is located on Hartsdown Road, Margate every Sunday from tomorrow.

The club has launched the Sunday Morning Football Club which will provide boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 15 with the opportunity to perfect their football skills or simply enjoy playing football.

The session kicks off at 10:30 tomorrow morning until 12 and costs just £3 per person – just turn up and play.

Wilson said: “It’s not an advance centre of a centre of excellence. It’s just a way of children getting introduced into football, hopefully continuing that on and it’s another way of children who are with clubs getting engaged into football when they’re not having any football in the summer and are looking forward to their new season.”

Many non-league club’s here in Kent are going down the Academy route, where they offer school leavers full-time training with qualified coaches and a chance to gain qualifications at a nearby college.

Wilson urges youngsters to pick up as many qualifications as possible, just in case their hopes of becoming a professional footballer are dashed.

Wilson recalled the time he parted company with then Premier League outfit Charlton Athletic at the age of nineteen and revealed many kids give up on the game as they can’t come to terms with playing at a much lower level.

He said: “You think I’m playing and doing well and the next day, it does literally change over night!

“It was February-March time so you’ve got a few months of the season left to find somewhere and all of a sudden you get calls from League Two and League One clubs but you think I want to be a Premiership footballer, why would I?

“There is a sense of arrogance when you leave a Premier League club but you’ve been brought up a certain way and brought up in reserve and Academy football. It’s not like playing competitive football, it’s not like money or results in front of fans.

“Reserve and Academy matches don’t really matter. It’s only when you get into playing first team football and you have to sacrifice the way you play your game. I’ve changed my game a ridiculous amount since I’ve played reserve and Academy football. You play to get results because when you get into the first team it’s a different level and you have to change your mentality a bit and it is hard.”

When asked what it’s like to be told that you’re going to be released by a Premier League club, Wilson said: “A lot of players just fall out. They don’t play football. They give up. It’s soul destroying to some of them. Some of the stories that I’ve had from some of the lads I was at Charlton with can break your heart, but you have to stick at it.

“I went to Iceland for a bit. I played out there which was a good period for me as it made me to clear my mind and get away from England. When I came back I went to (Conference South side) Bromley. It went ok. I had another change of manager there, but it brought me back to non-league football and I learnt to understand non-league football a lot more when I was there, what you need to do to play well, what it takes to play well, competitive football and part-time football.

“I was mixing it from my role at Charlton and I thought I could go on with this and next season I found Margate, which was quite handy, an up-and-coming club. It is a sleeping giant and hopefully with the manager we’ve got not (Chris Kinnear), we can push up.”

Wilson gave this piece of advice for youngsters.

“Do your coaching badges, get them done! I was lucky enough to build up a relationship with the community officer at Charlton and he offered me a job when I left. If you can do your badges, the boys go away to college one day a week and try and get some qualifications, otherwise saying ‘I’m a central midfielder and I can score goals and take free-kicks,’ is not enough for life as you can’t always rely on that.

“You need back-up to fall onto because that day comes when you’re not going to be a full-time footballer anymore and you need to have the tools to be able to get on with your lives in a way that you contribute to yourselves and hopefully you can contribute to the community, rather than sitting by your phone waiting for a full-time club.”

Now that he has stability in his life, Wilson is relishing the chance of Chris Kinnear stamping his authority on his beloved Margate again.

“Chris has got an excellent track record,” said Wilson. “It was exciting to be working with him over the last couple of games of the season. It’s been extremely positive.

“Hopefully we can get a little bit of stability going. Including myself, I’ve had seven managers in three years - it’s just crazy!”

You can contact Wayne at wayne.wilson@margate-fc.com

Please mention that you read this article on www.kentishfootball.co.uk

Visit Margate’s website: www.margate-fc.com