It’s the banner reading “The Game is Real” that hovers above my chosen YouTube video that lets me know I have found what I want. After yet another rambling Google quest, I have arrived at my destination: an induction into the world of a sports tournament that weaves a universal social message through a major international competition. I hit play, and the screen is awash with colour as flags, jerseys and painted faces dominate the video. Drummers march to the beat of a rhythm, hoards of screaming fans fill the stands, faces shining with sweat represent every corner of the globe. As the clip culminates in a series of spectacular goals and celebrations, the ecstasy between players and spectators becomes palpable, the sheer joy a hallmark of the importance of sport. This game is real all right.
For the homeless men and women participating in The Homeless World Cup it has all come down to this week. Its stark contrast with their one-time reality, highlights the positive impact of sport on the individual, their self-esteem and their attitude towards life. The next video on autoplay heralds the arrival of this year’s tournament from the 12th-19th September in Amsterdam. Teams picked, players ready, it’s time for The Homeless World Cup 2015 to kick-off.
The tournament was the brainchild of Mel Young and Harald Schmied. The two met for a drink while attending a conference on homelessness in Cape Town in 2001. By the night’s end they had sketched a blueprint for the international event that now touches the lives of 100,000 homeless people each year. The inaugural tournament took place two years later in Graz, Austria. From humble beginnings in 2001, the tournament now attracts around 54 international teams annually. Over the past few years the organising body has consistently reported that a staggering 94 per cent of participants report that their involvement has had a positive impact on their lives.
“Over the past few years the organising body has consistently reported that a staggering 94 per cent of participants report that their involvement has had a positive impact on their lives”
The tournament is similar to those organized of Rugby Sevens with three parts and a number of awards at the end of the competition. The games last fourteen minutes, seven per half with a one-minute break in between and four players take to the field at a time. Teams can be mixed, male or female with eight players making up each national squad. Players may only compete on one occasion, ensuring that the chance to participate can be extended to as many people as possible. The tournament organizers define homelessness, and thus player eligibility, as anybody who has been homeless within the previous two years.
I find myself one Friday night in the final days of August in the wood-paneled Oak Room of The Mansion House. Two crystal chandeliers are suspended from the ceiling illuminating the elegantly dressed crowd below. They chat in groups, the general hum being frequently interrupted with raucous bursts of laughter. Men clad in navy, green and white tracksuits with matching joggers flit from one group to the next greeting relatives, fans and fellow athletes.
Looking at the young athletes interacting with ease with the night’s guests, seemingly so at home in the lavish surroundings, there is no evidence suggesting that so recently they were excluded from such luxury, pomp and ceremony. These men are Ireland’s chosen representatives who in a week’s time will travel to Amsterdam and represent a nation of people from whom they were once so very far removed.
One man, who has witnessed the power of the beautiful game since the inaugural tournament in 2003 is Irish team manager Seán Kavanagh. Kavanagh has seen first hand the positive influence this unique concept has had on so many young Irishmen. “Somebody said that football can change the world, and it can because what it engenders is a sense of self worth. You’re in a team environment so you work as a team. It builds your communication skills, it builds your sense of self-discipline and these are all attributes that you need to move on in life – to be an active participant in life, rather than standing on the sidelines watching the match.”
Evidence of its life-altering impact is not hard to come by in the Mansion House room, nor is a willing candidate for interview. For vice-captain Cillian O’ Carrol, the night is a special one. While serving time in Wheatfield prison, he played five-a-side soccer facilitated by visits from former Irish youth international, Thomas Morgan. Morgan, this year’s team coach, encouraged him to attend trials after his release, from which he earned the honor of representing Ireland.
O’Carrol sums up the experience calling it “a great honor, a great privilege”. For him, and his parents and grandfather who join him tonight, this is a momentous occasion and the magnitude of his transformation and its effect on his family is not lost on him: “I’ve been away for a long time and then coming down to this, like it’s a big change!”
Kavanagh was a staff member for The Big Issue when the initial Homeless World Cup concept was circulated. At the time he was struggling to engage with younger homeless people in a society riding on the back of a robust Celtic tiger – a society from which these young men were excluded, in which they felt hopeless. “We decided to put a team in. We thought that there might be a bit of interest in it,” he says. “We went around the different agencies and asked them to send up players, but we were amazed because over a hundred players turned up. We thought we might get about ten maybe that might be interested but over a hundred turned up in the Ivy grounds.”
With such interest, Kavanagh decided that one night of trials wouldn’t give players the chance they deserved. Four weeks of trials began and the glut of players consistently showed up. Kavanagh worried that those not selected from the diligent group would be distraught at not making the team but this was not the case. “They were more disappointed that they had nowhere to go. They had built up camaraderie among themselves and even though they knew they weren’t good enough, they were more disappointed that that outlet for them was gone and it was back to the old routine. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do, to look forward to.” The idea for the weekly Irish Street Leagues was conceived amidst this lingering disappointment, and the results of competing internationally only strengthened their resolve to found the league.
After traveling to the inaugural World Cup with the first squad Kavanagh and other mentors were delighted to see confidence and happiness flourishing among their ranks. Members set about planning the kind of futures at home that they had never before allowed themselves to even dream of. “They saw another world out there where they weren’t stigmatized by their past, where they were equal with anybody else,” Kavanagh explains.
“They saw another world out there where they weren’t stigmatized by their past, where they were equal with anybody else”
But reality hit hard when, having touched down in Ireland, they realized that three of the team had no home to go to, facing a return to “Cardboard City,” as Kavanagh puts it. It was then that the determination to set up the street leagues, in effect providing an enduring social outlet for Ireland’s homeless population, really took hold. They founded these leagues to magnify nationally the beneficial impact of the international competition on all players, both those who made the team and those who didn’t.
The resulting success stories are not hard to find, a fact that is further proved when Kavanagh steers me in the direction of David Byrne. Much celebrated in both Irish soccer and street league circles, Byrne represented Ireland in Mexico City in 2012. For him, it was a metamorphic experience. Not only did he represent Ireland, he also won the prestigious goalkeeper of the tournament award out of the participating 48 countries. This occurred despite the fact that he broke his thumb in the first match. He laughs it off recalling how “I had to get the doctor to sign off that if I played any more games, I was responsible. They weren’t taking any responsibility but I just had to play on cause like I was the only keeper and cause you’re playing for your country.”
Byrne says of his time away: “It was just a buzz all the way through, even though we were serious about the football. But we got back to the hotel and you’d have a buzz with the other teams and all it was real relaxing, total out of this world experience.” While he refers to the senior Irish men’s soccer team as the real stars, Byrne says, “when you’re over there playing for The Homeless World Cup, you actually feel like a star and there’s nothing better.”
Since the World Cup, Byrne has gone on to complete his coaching course with the FAI and last year coached The Willows under 10’s. A proud father of three, Byrne says that the season he spent there was inspiring, especially seeing his young charges’ raw enjoyment of sport. As for the future, Byrne has it well planned out: “I’m looking to progress to get my UEFA B goalkeeping license. It’s just gonna help me further down the line. I’m looking to go into the goalkeeping part of it and you never know what job could come up.”
“I’m looking to progress to get my UEFA B goalkeeping license. It’s just gonna help me further down the line. I’m looking to go into the goalkeeping part of it and you never know what job could come up”
This year’s team were selected following the aforementioned traditional trial system over the past few months in Dublin. Team captain Joseph Thompson, of a large Laois contingent representing Ireland, reflected on the trials saying “I enjoyed it ‘cause when I was training I wasn’t thinking of anything else or any problems or anything like that. Just concentrating on what I was doing trying to improve myself even better to give myself an even bigger chance of getting picked for the team.”
For him the honor of being captain is one he had dreamed about; “I’d been hoping and praying, like, I tried to put in as much effort as I could and not miss training sessions, do everything I could for the boys, if they rang me to do something to do it just to give myself that opportunity of getting captaincy of the team.”
The team is extremely competitive and should be seen as such, one player points out. He is concerned that as it is not the traditional tournament, The Homeless World cup is perceived as solely about enjoyment – which is of course a factor – requiring little preparation. As Byrne leads me towards their fitness coach, I realize that despite the levity of the night at hand that this is a serious sporting endeavor.
Fitness coach Graham Tucker captained the Irish side in Rio 2010. “I played soccer from when I was seven years of age and then I fell down the wrong track. I made the wrong choices, I ended up being an alcoholic and then I got myself together and heard about the street leagues got involved and then I was selected.” Following his experience in the tournament Tucker went on to get a qualification in fitness training and was asked back to work with the team this year.
“I know what it’s like and I know what they need to do be to compete,” he says. “Because it’s The Homeless World Cup people think it’s not that big of a tournament but it’s an international tournament, so with my experience I know what they need.” As for the lasting impact 2010 had on him, Tucker says “You make good friends and you stay good friends with them and that’s what it’s all about them going over and enjoying themselves and then coming back and staying friends in the street leagues.”
For Kavanagh, regardless of the scoreboard in Amsterdam, real success stories are home grown. “Perhaps the most significant achievements from our point of view, is what happens off the pitch. We’ve had lads that have re-engaged with their families, addressed addiction issues, some have gone back to education, some have gone back into the workforce and some have become football coaches, become mentors for a new generation within their own communities. So from that point of view it has been a great success.”
“Perhaps the most significant achievements from our point of view, is what happens off the pitch. We’ve had lads that have re-engaged with their families, addressed addiction issues, some have gone back to education, some have gone back into the workforce and some have become football coaches, become mentors for a new generation within their own communities”
The statistics calculated by international tournament organizers reflect this – 83% of participants worldwide reported improved relations with family members and 77% reported significant life changes as a direct result of their involvement. Kavanagh reminds me that while the results are promising there is a huge fundraising effort throughout the course of the year to ensure that a team can be sent. With only a proportion of the cost covered by government grants to the association, it falls to players and management to struggle to come up with the rest. They fundraised in the past few months which included organizing a charity boxing match and hope to host another event upon their return to cover the remaining costs of the trip.
As the evening draws to a close the hostess for the evening, Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, welcomes the team to the stage. “It’s never easy to get a place on a team, but you’ve had a lot more obstacles than most people have and for that I commend you for achieving this great honor and representing your country.” Kevin Kilbane, former Irish soccer international, shakes the hands of the 2013 team awarding them their international cap recognizing their sporting service to their country at international level.
As the members of this year’s team stand proudly at the top of the Oak Room, there is an insuppressible sense of excitement. It is as though this public presentation is the final frontier and all that is left to do now is to board a plane and jog onto the pitch. They worked hard for this. The evidence of their hard work is obvious. In the far corner of the room is a stack of kit bags overflowing with gear – a reminder that this is real, that there are no days off, and that they are ready to take on the world in Amsterdam.
You can support the team and the street leagues by checking irishstreetleague.com for upcoming fundraisers and matches
