PR & Media Centre

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12/07/2007

Intellect kit for Samba Street Soccer

Local children’s football project receives support from Intellect staff and board

Samba Street Soccer is a grass roots organisation transforming the lives of children in a disadvantaged area of West London. Set up in 2005 by ex-professional footballer, Andrew Amers-Morrison, it teaches local children a South American form of football known as ‘futsal’, which emphasises ball skills. Intellect has provided Samba Street Soccer with new team strips thanks to fund-raising efforts of staff and board members.

Currently nearly 150 young people aged between 4 and 21 come to Samba Street Soccer regularly, and with additional funding more would join. Amers-Morrison comments: “Many of the kids on the estates have been excluded from school, given asbos or come out of juvenile centres with tags around their legs and curfews to keep. They come to Samba Street Soccer to learn tricks with a football but what they also get is empowerment and self-belief. We're doing something where they don't want to go out and smash a window, don't want to steal a bag or smoke drugs. None of my under-10s are excluded from school any more and crime is down on the estates.  To keep Samba Street Soccer going we need money but fundraising has been very difficult.”

Despite its financial worries, the club has been very successful winning local estate and community cups. Two boys now train with Premiership youth development programmes and a teenage girl has won a sports scholarship to Mississippi State University.  Yet just two years ago none of them had played in football boots or even been a member of a team.

Intellect has raised enough money to provide the children with their football kit and will also be offering further financial and business services support. For more information please visit http://www.sambastreetsoccer.com/ or contact Antony Walker at Intellect on 020 7331 2025 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Download team photo (759KB)

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