THE HAMMER IN THE SLAMMER
We join Michail Antonio at Chelmsford prison to see inmates graduate from a West Ham academy with a difference
‘You have to keep believing in people’
WEST HAM are s***!’ The shout booms out from a cell in one of the blocks opposite the artificial football pitch in the middle of HMP Chelmsford.
To be fair, the governor had warned me. ‘Some of the men are annoyed they weren’t picked for the course,’ Penny Bartlett explains. ‘But some of them just don’t like West Ham.’
The course she is referring to is why I am here. It is also why Hammers winger Michail Antonio is present, along with club legend Tony Cottee and — most importantly — coaches from the east London club’s foundation.
West Ham are one of 45 clubs to have ‘ twinned’ with their local prison. Once a week the coaches head in to deliver a course to 13 inmates. The course, which runs for six weeks, aims to give the prisoners skills they can use when they get out in a bid to prevent them from reoffending and coming back in. Today is graduation day and Antonio is here to hand out certificates.
‘I thought I might see someone I know!’ he jokes. ‘I’ve actually been looking forward to it.’
Antonio, 29, is a smart choice to come to the Essex nick. He grew up in south west London, spent his formative years around people who had done time and speaks intelligently about it.
‘Gang life — and the peer pressure that comes with it — was massive,’ he explains. ‘There were five gangs where I grew up. Around Wandsworth, Battersea and Clapham Junction. Gangs everywhere. Gangs making money, getting all the girls — it’s easy to fall into.’
Antonio makes the point that those who end up behind bars are not necessarily the usual suspects. ‘The craziest thing is a lot of the kids I knew that were in and out were in the top sets at school,’ he explains. ‘ They were bright. It’s just at the time they wanted quick money. It’s there, you can get it. It’s easy to succumb to peer pressure and that’s the way it was.’
The father of three, who doubles as an entrepreneur and investor, knows about the value of education. His mother famously stopped him from joining Spurs as a 14-year- old because of the impact crossing the Thames on a regular basis would have had on his studies.
‘I was upset at the time but she was right,’ he says. ‘She’s made sure I’ve been given tools I can use outside of football. Education is the future and hopefully these guys here can use it.’
Antonio is confident that the courses can prevent reoffending. ‘The majority of the time when people are committing crimes it’s when they believe there is nobody there to help them,’ he explains. ‘If they don’t see opportunities they will try another way. The impact of them seeing coaches in here, people on their side, is massive. If they can see that people care then they will try to help themselves and believe there are things out there for them.’
I ask if he had any concerns about coming to the prison. ‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘You can’t judge.
I’m pretty sure you’ll have done something to break the law. I know I have — speeding. Yes, people do some serious things but you can’t judge everyone under one book. You have to keep believing in them.’
Out on the 3G pitch, which Paul Peschisolido, a former player and husband of Hammers vice-chairman Karren Brady, earlier joked was ‘better than what we used to train on at Birmingham’, the group go through their paces.
I speak to one inmate, who understandably would rather not tell me why he is here but does want to talk about the impact that the course is having. ‘As soon as we are out here, we don’t feel like we are in a jail,’ he explains. ‘Normally it’s a 22-hour bang-up. When Wednesday comes you’re happy. Here we go.’
The prisoner is hoping to be out after Christmas. He is also hoping the skills he has learned will serve him well. ‘It’s a massive help,’ he says. ‘The communication and teamwork is huge. The boys are now taking time to think. Think before you do things, think about the consequences.’
I ask what he would say to those who believe those who commit crimes that put them in prison should not be given assistance. ‘I totally understand that,’ he says. ‘But coming out and reoffending is no use to anyone, is it?’
The Twinning Project programme, which includes leadership, teamwork and communications skills, is the brainchild of former Arsenal co- owner and vice-chairman David Dein, who I speak to in a narrow corridor outside the prison gym. ‘Come into my office,’ he jokes. It is not the marble walls of Highbury.
After leaving the Gunners, Dein spent time giving motivational talks in each of the country’s 114 prisons. His project is now a year old and he is delighted with the progress being made.
‘The stark reality is 83 per cent of those in prison do not have a job when they come out,’ he explains. ‘So what happens? Back to drugs, back to violence. When we launched, Karren Brady was the first to put her hand up. We now have 45 clubs. We’re getting more and more every month.’
Dein believes that the finances alone justify the scheme. ‘It costs the taxpayer £35,000 a year to keep someone in prison,’ he states. ‘If you had a son and sent him to Eton it would cost that. If we stop 30 from reoffending we’re saving the taxpayer £1million for putting a couple of coaches into local prison a couple of times a week. The return on the investment is huge.’
Upon completion, inmates receive an FA certificate and are placed on to what Dein calls ‘a pathway’ to employment with Twinning Project clubs offering assistance in their search for a job. ‘A lot of people think prison is for punishment,’ Dein adds. ‘I don’t agree. Going to prison is the punishment, where the offender loses their liberty, their job, their dignity and could well lose their partner. Being inside, in my opinion, should be for rehabilitation. These prisoners will be coming out and they will be walking around Chelmsford High St — so let’s make them better people.’
Is it working? Bartlett, who looks after a Category B prison which houses people who have committed offences including murder, believes it is.
‘The impact is wider than the 13 men on the pitch,’ she says. ‘We now have 64 men on a waiting list to do the next course. Those doing the course are being given great skills in managing anything life may throw at them post-release.’
Like Dein, she feels that working with, rather than against, those in prison is a commonsense approach. ‘Any one of these men could live next door to us,’ she says. ‘If we continue to do nothing we will get what we have always got.’