Supporting The Soundcafe Leicester Homeless Football & Well-Being Tournament

Homelessness is a growing issue across the country right now.

With the current cost of living in the UK and the recent rises in interest rates, the charity Crisis anticipates a significant increase in the number of families facing homelessness across 2023. 

And a YouGov survey found that almost 40% of people across the UK are just one paycheck away from potentially facing homelessness. It’s something that could happen to anyone.

One charity that is consistently doing great work for those facing homelessness across the Leicestershire area, is Soundcafe.

Introducing Soundcafe

Soundcafe provides a safe creative space for any guests who are facing homelessness, are at risk of homelessness, or live in vulnerable housing in Leicestershire.

Their services help provide a sense of belonging amongst their guests, give them an outlet for their creativity, and help them build strong collaborative relationships.

Every year, Soundcafe runs a football tournament so people who are homeless or vulnerable can be involved in a day of fun competition and community activities.

Everything Community have worked with Soundcafe on a few occasions over the last 12 months, and we actually donated wristbands for the teams attending their 2022 football event.

This year, we wanted to do more and joined Mind, Blackthorn Griffiths, Quorn and ABA in officially sponsoring the event.

Everything Community agreed to sponsor 2 of the pitches and also agreed to feed 2 teams after the event, bringing our total contribution to £400.

Our sponsorship was gratefully received, with Maria O’Brien from Soundcafe commenting.

"Without sponsors we aren't able to put on football and certainly couldn't do a health and wellbeing event like this”

Behind the scenes of Tournament Day

The day was incredibly well planned with all teams due to arrive at 11:50am, and games running from 12:00pm to 3:00pm.

There were 14 teams announced for the event, put together by organisations supporting the homeless across the Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire area.

The full list of teams participating included:

• SoundCafe Foxes
• Notts County Community Fund
• Derby County Community Fund
• Aston Villa Community Fund
• City of Sanctuary
• Help The Homeless Leicester
• Action Homeless
• Falcon Support Services
• Inclusive Health
• Ingeus
• Leicestershire Police
• Leicester City in the Community
• Acute Business directory
• The Bridge

In addition to the teams and supporters, there were also some local charities at the event who arrived with stands and material designed to help raise awareness of the support offered to people struggling with homelessness or related health issues.

The charities attending were:

1.         NHS Diabetes

2.         ProstAid

3.         Live Well

4.         HTH

5.         Action Homeless

6.         Mind

On the day, the teams all arrived in their kits (generously provided by Mind) and there was an air of excitement as the whistle blew for the kickoff for the first match.

Our social media team attended the event, and some of the games were very tightly fought - with some impressive footballing skills on show by players on all teams.

The eventual winners of the FairPlay Cup were City of Sanctuary and Leicestershire Police won the overall tournament. Both teams were delighted to receive their trophy and medals at the closing ceremony - before everyone settled down for a well-deserved hot meal.

But the real champions of the day were Soundcafe Leicester, who put on a tremendous event that really helped raise awareness of the support available to those experiencing homelessness and gave players from all teams a real day to remember!

We’re looking forward to next year!

We caught up with Rachel Griffiths and Maria O’Brien after the event to share how much we enjoyed the day and pledge our continued support for next year.

We’re even thinking about fielding our own Everything Branded team in 2024!