BREAKFAST CLUB
How Huddersfield are helping youngsters with their very own...
Kids weren’t being fed before school, we had to do something
IT WAS a chance meeting g with a six-year-old boy in n 2012 that helped shape e the way Huddersfield d Town owner Dean Hoyle e viewed his club’s place in his home town.
‘I was at a local school and the head introduced me to him,’ said Hoyle. ‘He lived near the stadium with his mum. She was a drug addict and he was her carer. He didn’t know where his dad was.
‘That school was 2.9 miles away from my nice little village. I checked in my sat nav. I have a nice home and everything I want, yet this s**t was happening right on my doorstep. He was a lost soul. It made me wonder what we could do.’
Five and a half years on from that sobering day, Hoyle was sitting this week on a tiny chair having toast and cereal with children at the Christ Church Academy just down the road from Huddersfield’s training ground.
Every morning at 8am at 24 schools across the town, more than 1,000 children eat a healthy breakfast paid for by their local football club.
They don’t have to come to Huddersfield’s ‘Breakfast Club’ — that starts an hour before class — but many do. At Christ Church, there were 75 there on Thursday.
‘I came here four years ago and it was one of our first breakfast clubs,’ Hoyle added. ‘We were in League One. There were lots of things that seemed impossible but there was a need for this. Local government cannot afford to do it.
‘We live in a nice bubble and footballers get paid lots of money. But this is a diverse community, like lots of northern towns.
‘Teachers told me the problem was kids coming to school having had no breakfast or even a drink.
‘They are expected to start working but they are hungry. They don’t know how to use a knife and fork, they can’t socialise round a table. So I thought we could do a heck of a job quite quickly.
‘Sometimes we have 50 children in and only five of them really need it. But those five do really need it. There is no discrimination, everybody’s welcome.’
Huddersfield’s Breakfast scheme cost the club’s Foundation about £70,000 a year. It is appreciated.
Christchurch head teacher Lisa Walton-Thorpe said: ‘Children perform better when they have had a proper start to the day.
‘Attainment, attendance and concentration levels will go up because of this and that’s fantastic.’
Hoyle was joined this Thursday by Huddersfield’s Danish goalkeeper Jonas Lossl and German left back Chris Lowe.
Training ahead of today’s home meeting with Manchester United was not scheduled until 3pm, but breakfast and some energetic three-a-side with a group of six and sevenyear-olds was a decent warm up.
Lowe, a father of one, was born in the East German town of Plauen in 1989, seven months before the Berlin Wall fell. The site of the first mass demonstration that eventually led to the unification of Germany, Plauen has its own footnote in history.
Lowe said: ‘My grandparents told me the stories of queuing for vegetables and waiting a long time for food.
‘ There were somee hard moments for people back then. But it shows familyily is the most important t thing in life so it is good to be here today.
‘The kids can see we are normal people, just people who can play football a bit better.
‘Last season we did ann unbelievable thing for thehe town and now everybody is enjoying the Premier League.eague But the chairman understands what is important.
‘We have a special life in football and it’s different to the life of the kids. We want to give a bit back.’
The future of Huddersfield’s blooming Foundation, relaunched in March, does not depend on Premier League survival. But the profile of life in the top division, and money from the TV deal, does help. David Wagner’s team have not won since they bounced out of the traps with two opening victories. They have scored only once in six league games that have followed and lost 4-0 to Tottenham the llast time they played at home. Today’sT game with UnitedU and a visit to LiverpoolL next weekend suggests things may have to get worse beforeb they get better. Lowe — who played underu Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund — said: ‘The Premier League is completely different. You can’t make mistakes as you will concede a goal. We know that now. But I think we have enough quality to avoid relegation. ‘I don’t know if the Tottenham game was the wake-up call. I think that actually was the defeat at West Ham. That was the first time we realised what happens if you are not at your best. You have to be 100 per cent or you will get nothing.
‘The play-off final last season at Wembley was the best day in our footballing lives. You can’t buy that feeling. But we always knew how unbelievably hard it would be for Huddersfield to stay up. So this isn’t a big surprise.
‘We must stick together and try to play our football at our best level. If we do that then in 70 or 80 per cent of our games we will be OK.’
Lowe drove home from his visit to Breakfast Club in a Smart car. It seems the most down-to-earth club in the Premier League has in its ranks another down-to-earth footballer. Premier League success would mean everything to this club and this town. But if it doesn’t work out, real life will go on.
‘This town is divided in some ways,’ explained Hoyle. ‘But people like football and it can bring them together. We can do our bit, can’t we?’