One man proving players do give something back...
ANDY ROBERTSON walked into the St Andrew’s Community Network building on Larkhill Lane, a mile or so from Anfield, on Friday afternoon with two bulging plastic bags in each hand. He wandered through the entrance hall, past a noticeboard adorned with tips on how to be thrifty and took the bags into a back room where layers of green trays were stacked.
The Liverpool defender put the bags down so the contents could be distributed by North Liverpool Foodbank helpers later. He had brought a cornucopia of items: spaghetti hoops, long grain rice, herbal tea, fruit juice, Pot Noodles, a bag of sugar, some scented soaps in a fancy gold bag, a couple of tins of peas and some white lasagne pasta sauce.
Robertson has travelled this road before. He played in the Celtic youth system until he was released when he was 15 and he was aware that the club had been formed by Brother Walfrid in the late 19th Century with the purpose of alleviating poverty in the east end of Glasgow by raising money for the charity Walfrid had instituted, the Poor Children’s Dinner Table.
When he turned 21 a couple of years ago, while he was playing for Hull City in the Premier League, Robertson did some research and asked that his family and friends make donations to the East Renfrewshire Foodbank, near where he was brought up, rather than give him presents for his birthday.
‘ I love getting presents but I thought maybe I could give something back,’ says Robertson, 23. He raised more than £500 on that occasion. Now he is getting involved again.
Maybe it was because he had worked in a nine-to-five job when he was in his late teens, combining that with playing amateur football for Queen’s Park, that he has a keener appreciation of people’s problems.
‘I worked in the corporate department at Hampden Park taking phone calls and ticket orders for games,’ says Robertson. ‘We trained twice a week at night and played games on Saturday, so I was working nine to five and then having to train.’
His involvement with the foodbanks was an obvious route for him to go down at the club he joined for £ 10million in the summer after Hull decided to cash in on him in the wake of their relegation from the top flight.
Liverpool are as attuned to their surrounding community as any club in the country and for a couple of seasons now, they have encouraged the foodbank van to park in the fanzone on the Anfield Road from three hours before every home game to collect donations.
Everton also offer help and the partnership with the local clubs has grown this season.
Liverpool email their seasonticket holders to make them aware of the presence of the foodbank, organise staff collections and help with social media. They have targeted six home games in particular this season at which to maximise donations. Club staff sometimes join foodbank volunteers in the collection and distribution of items.
Liverpool fans donate an average of 10 crates of food per game to the North Liverpool Foodbank. Their c o nt r i but i o ns have been put towards feeding nearly 7,000 people who have asked for help in that part of the city over the past year. Former players have donated food. Now current players such as Robertson are helping, too.
At a time when sports stars are making headlines for high-profile political protest, when they are increasingly demanding that their voices are heard and using their platform as a force for change, Robertson’s low-profile presence in a quiet part of the city was a reminder that a sportsman’s social activism can take different forms.
We may not see Robertson taking a knee any time soon. He is quick to point out that a sportsman has as much right to express an opinion as anyone but he was brought up to keep his political opinions private. ‘People can be sheep in the way they follow the crowd,’ he says, ‘and sometimes that’s a reason why change doesn’t happen.’
The idea that sportspeople should stick to sport is becoming increasingly redundant as their power and influence grows. The idea that they should remain isolated, hidden behind the tinted windows of their SUVs, cocooned in their wealth, is less and less viable. And the idea that we should seek to stop people such as Robertson talking about social issues is puzzling at a time when he and many other leading footballers feel a responsibility to use their wealth and position for good. Robertson listened intently as foodbank co-ordinator Vicky Ponsonby explained that more than 50 per cent of those who ask for help from foodbanks are employed working-class people, some on zero hours contracts, some so stretched that one moment of misfortune can plunge them below t he poverty l i ne and i nto crisis. Figures say that 52 per cent of people helped by foodbanks in this country are in work, struggling on the minimum wage or having to wait too long for wages to be paid and going into debt as a result. In north Liverpool, support agencies such as schools, job centres, the Citizens Advice Bureau or community centres identify people in need and give them a voucher, which they then hand in at the foodbank.
‘It was something I didn’t think about until six months before my 21st,’ says Robertson.
‘When you realise the scale of the problem, it takes you aback. There are people walking among us who rely on foodbanks and you don’t even know about it. If you can make everyone more aware, it can only help society.’
Robertson wanders through the storeroom and sits outside for a minute to talk. He perches on a rickety old trestle table. Behind him, there is a faded mural of blue sea, pine trees and a paradise island.
‘WHEN YOU REALISE THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM, IT DOES TAKE YOU ABACK’