Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the distraction pieces podcast and thank you for joining us today for a very special episode

which is made possible by the national lottery today. I'm going to be joined by a football in hero

Rio Rosenberg from hybrid London who has a brilliant story to tell and also joining us is Charlie from the Bloomsbury Football Foundation.

A lot of you know I've been a football fan since I was a kid I've been going to Millwall since I was five years old and I mean of all the clubs to have been going to I've seen how much how important community work is and outreach work is for

bringing players through for bringing just people into the sport and support in the right way and that's what we're going to be kind of talking about

today because because Bloomsbury Football Foundation has worked with Rio to help impact young footballers around North London. I said Charlie's the founder and CEO of Bloomsbury Football Foundation who

use national lottery funding to improve the lives of young people. The organization's aim is to create a sense of community and engagement amongst the kids that join for a kick about and

to try and make sure that that sense of community engagement is available to kids from any background you know and they're not just trying to teach them football skills through access to top quality football in opportunities.

They're also trying to mentor them and setting them up for challenges that may lie ahead in future life so yeah I'm particularly excited as said to talk to Rio because Rio was the head coach for the under 10's team at Bloomsbury and it's assisting coach for the under 14 girls.

She's at take a break due to university but still supports coaching and getting involved in the in the football camps as we touch upon and has also been involved in loads of things like the women's football coverage at YouTube channel haters TV.

She was starting to palace under 23's in 2020 but most important as said and what we're here to talk about is through Bloomsbury football she mentors the young players she used to teach two of whom are on course to be pros at crystal palace and Arsenal respectively but we get into all of that.

I promise you as a treat of a bonus episode on a topic that you can tell you you can hear from the intro and you'll hear from the conversations the topic I'm really passionate about and care about as said I've supported a club that has had a lot of troubles over the years with fans with all sorts of stuff and it's the small bits of work I've done with over them over the years it became really clear really quickly.

You don't just solve these problems inside the turn styles and you do need to solve them there as well but it's community stuff it's community projects it's bringing people from all sorts of different backgrounds together and giving access to expert and you know high level facilities giving access to everyone regardless of background is key and that's what we're going to be talking about so.

Without any more round but in let's get into the podcast let's talk to Rio and Charlie.

Right I'm here today with Charlie and Rio welcome to distraction pieces before we dive into the beautiful game and how the national lottery funding is helped.

The amazing operation you guys run at Bloomsbury football club can you introduce yourselves to our listeners and let us know how you're involved in the whole in the whole set up who wants to go first.

I'll take the lead so my name is Charlie Hyman I'm the founder and CEO of Bloomsbury football foundation I set it up four and a half years ago and I'm still here running it.

I love it and my name is Rio I'm still involved in Bloomsbury in some aspects but I was a former under 10 and under 14 and head coach and assistant coach at Bloomsbury.

I love it and and how have you guys enjoyed the seasons so far when we last down at Bloomsbury so it's been a pretty busy start to what is the 22 23 season for us.

I try and get out to see the programs and the work that goes on on the ground as much as possible but most of my time is spent behind the scenes trying to organize things and make sure that we're able to run all the programs that we do and also able to raise in our funds to be able to support the children who couldn't afford to play without that funding that we get from generous partners and donors.

Yeah so I want to get into more of that Charlie but before we do Rio obviously you love your football I want to understand a bit more about how you fell in love with the game and what was your your entry into into this this this lifelong passion.

Yeah I fell in love with the game probably through my mom she took me going to the park when I was very very young and parents kind of test you out at all different sports or activities that you might like.

...