GIVING SOMETHING BACK
How Robertson is winning hearts and minds in Liverpool
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 one on top of the other.
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 different items: spaghetti hoops, long grain rice, herbal tea, fruit juice, Pot Noodle, a bag of sugar, some scented soaps in a fancy gold bag, a couple of tins of peas and some pasta sauce.
Robertson has travelled this road before. He played in the Celtic youth system until he was released when he was 15. 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 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 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 few seasons now, they have encouraged the foodbank van to park in the fanzone on Anfield Road from three hours before every home game to collect donations.
Liverpool fans donate an average of 10 crates of food per game to the North Liverpool Foodbank. Their contributions have been put towards feeding nearly 7,000 people who have asked for help in that part of the city over the last year. Former players have donated food.
Now current players such as Robertson are helping, too.
At a time when sportsmen are making headlines for highprofile 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 sportsmen should stick to sport is becoming increasingly redundant as their power and their influence grows. The idea 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 want them to do that, that we should seek to stop people such as Robertson talking about social issues, is puzzling at a time where he and many others feel a responsibility to use their wealth and their 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 the poverty line and force them into 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.
‘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 back. There are people who rely on foodbanks and you don’t even know about it.
‘If you can make people more aware, it can only help society.’