DOING HIS BIT
Former Birmingham striker Geoff Horsfield helps the homeless
GEOFF Horsfield was at St Andrew’s on Friday night, his phone on in case there was a water leak at one of his houses.
It could be worse. The call might be about a drug addict smashing up his home. It could be a call to see if he could take someone else off the streets.
A day in the life of someone trying to help the homeless is never predictable. But it’s always challenging.
Seventeen years ago Horsfield was in the Birmingham City team beaten by Liverpool in the League Cup final. The following season his goals helped get Blues into the Premier League.
He played alongside a World Cup winner, French stylist Christophe Dugarry
“A Barnsley bricklayer and the ballet from Bordeaux they called us,” recalls Horsfield, now 44 and getting a bit of weight off in readiness for playing again in charity Sunday football.
It’s midweek and mid-afternoon in Erdington, North Birmingham, and Horsfield has got Blues assistant manager Pep Clotet and young striker Viv Solomon-Otabor with him at No 55, the latest house Horsfield has bought.
“It was an old lady’s,” says Horsfield. “No central heating and only two or three electricity sockets. We’ve had to strip it right out and put in new cables and pipes.”
This is the fifth house in Horsfield’s portfolio. It’s being turned into five flats. By the time it is finished he will have provided 30 beds for the homeless.
Birmingham only got 16 points more than that to escape relegation last season.
They were at home to West Brom last night, another of Horsfield’s former clubs.
His goals also got Albion promotion and then the one he scored and the one he made beat Portsmouth to keep the Baggies up on the day of the Great Escape of 2005.
“At Christmas we were nowhere,” says Horsfield recalling one of the best moments of his career.
“At kick-off we were still nowhere near and ended up winning. Not that I can remember much. Bryan Robson was the manager. That were a proper drink!”
The brickie from Barnsley put all his medals up for auction, plus shirts from Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, John Terry, Robin Van Persie, Patrick Viera and Ronaldinho to raise money for his Geoff Horsfield Foundation.
Next is an ambitious ‘hub’ where, with the help of Birmingham City who are taking his voice to a bigger audience, Horsfield wants to provide a one-stop homeless centre.
“With the money we are raising and with Blues coming on board, if we can get it cheap, or for a peppercorn rent and we can get sponsorship or external funding, we can help people,” he says.
Better
“People are going to drug use and it is better for them if I have a drug rehabilitation room for clean needles instead of using dirty needles.
“You are never going to stop drugs. Ever. But we can make it a better and a safer place.
“Same with the alcohol. We are not going to open a bar in there but if we can help them and try to support them, direct them to different organisations, then it is all good.”
Part of the personal stuff was Horsfield’s League Cup runners-up medal.
“Somebody paid £1,600 for my Worthington Cup and then about three weeks later I went to the player of the year award at Blues and he gave me it back,” says Horsfield. “He went, ‘I want you to have it’, I said ‘I don’t want it. You’ve paid for it, you’ve paid the money to the foundation’. have “But to he sell said your ‘You medal shouldn’t that you cherish’. So that were a nice touch.” The Yorkshire accent keeps coming Horsfield through. hasn’t changed a lot since he was banging in goals for Non-League Halifax in what Conference. was then the Kevin Keegan took him to Fulham and Horsfield comes up with a great tale of how his life changed. “So, yeah, Kevin Keegan down took to Fulham,” me he said. “We were playing away and I was rooming with Steve Finnan. Finn said ‘are you hungry?’ “I looked down the room service menu and went ‘I’ll have burger and chips’ and he went ‘I’ll have a tuna sweetcorn and a bottle of water’. I had two bottles of coke with me burger and chips. “We didn’t know it went straight through to KK’s room so he found out what we ordered and BANG on the door. He gave the sweetcorn sandwich to Steve and said ‘Obviously that’s yours’ and walked off. “Then he gets me in front of the lads and embarrassed me to death. He fined me a week’s wages and my head just dropped. “Then he pulled me in the office and said ‘You can go all the way to the Premier League, stop being like that’. “He said give me 500 quid so I had to go to the bank. When I’d got it he just said ‘Here, get your missus something nice’ and gave me the money back. “Kevin was just making an example of me. Brilliant management. “It changed me. l worked hard and did what I did. Mind, I still had a burger, he just didn’t know!” With Horsfield at the game on Friday night was his nine-medal year-old daughter Lexie. She’s Blues mad and although her dad tells her he was a much better player than Che Adams will ever be, she won’t have it.
There were collection bins at the game for fans to donate toiletries.
“It is a fine line between having a home and being homeless,” says Horsfield. “We’ve had loads of difficult situations. But I can’t judge them.
Respect
“We’ve got people who have been in prison. As soon as I get them, I say ‘Listen, I respect you as much as I’ve respected every single person I’ve played football against and I’ve played against top players.
“’It’s my house but it’s your home. You want it nice, you don’t want it left like a dump and smashed to bits’.
“A lot of drug dealers have come in and they’ve smashed doors in. You get that. You can’t do anything about it – that is part and parcel of what we do.
“We are never going to stop drugs. We are never going to stop alcohol.
“We just try to manage it, support them and try to get them off it.
“Having a cup of coffee for 20 minutes with someone makes a massive difference.
“It is like us going on holiday for two weeks, that is what it means to them, just to see a smile.
“I can be at a game with my little ‘un and there is a flood at one of the houses.
“I’ve been in the pub on a Friday afternoon and had two or three sherberts and my missus has had to come and drive me because there’s some water coming through the ceiling.”
Horsfield sponsors a boxer, Ben Fields, a heroin addict, and an alcoholic, who was homeless for 18 months.
Fields went into accommodation, found a gym, found boxing and has won seven amateur fights and turned professional, winning his first fight in Coventry two weeks ago.
Horsfield gets his tenants in off the streets, does his best to get them off whatever t is, gets the
and “We finds will sort out their devil their benefits, sort out a doctor, dentist. Things we take for granted, they can’t do it sometimes.
“If they are on heroin they need methadone every day to try to wean them off.”
Birmingham have given six bags of old training stuff and if somebody is still struggling, Horsfield will go down to Asda and get them some clothes.
“I used to pay out of my own money but with the foundation now that helps,” he said.
“I started doing it by taking some of them bowling and paintballing and it has just grown into a massive snowball. I woudn't swap this for football.
“Once this house is done and it is full and everybody goes ‘Thank you’, that is enough for me. A thank you and a smile.”