Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Central Youth Club boys win top BBC prize


9 boys at Central Youth Club, Walker Street, Pythian Estate, Kensington have won a top BBC competition.


With the help of Tony Ealey of Eek Films Ltd (www.eekfilms.com) they made a short 30 second film, recreating a favourite moment from the FA cup in times gone by, a la Skinner and Baddiel, which they entered in the BBCs Sport Academy competition.


They chose Liverpool's Djimi Traore's own goal against Burnley in the third round of the Cup in 2005. (A bit of a strange choice given that most of them are Liverpool supporters....)


The film beat others from all over the country which is a fantastic achievement. If you have the right kind of software you can click on the title of this entry and go to the BBC website where you can view the film.


The judges said they particularly enjoyed the commentary!


The whole community is so proud of them, I dont know anyone who ever won a BBC competition. Truly amazing.


We had a presentation tonight where they all had a certificate from the club celebrating their achievement.


What was the prize? Well, that's the rub really. It was two tickets to the FA cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United on May 19th. You could argue that nobody in Liverpool would want to watch and support either, but of course the reality is very different. An FA cup final is a FA cup final and this is a historic one, being the first to be played in the new Wembley stadium.


But how do 9 boys use 2 tickets for a match in London?


Answer, you have to have a draw amongst the 9 and the lucky winner gets to take an adult with him who can supervise the journey and the day.


Guess who they asked to make this draw and thus become the most unpopular woman on the estate for 8 of the boys? Yup, yours truly. Wendy tried not to laugh as I was thrown to the wolves.


Well done boys, we are all immensely proud of you. I only wish there had been two tickets for every one of you, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that your film was the best in the country. Wendy said to Marie afterwards, the youth worker at the club, "It is so good to see kids doing great things and being so successful, people are so quick to judge all young people as yobs."


Indeed!


Do watch it, it is great

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Louise,

What a fantastic win by the young people, it is a credit to their creativity, sense of fun, sense of humour and hard work. A good piece of youth work by Marie and the staff from Central, in partnership with Eek Productions.

Having been at the presentation myself i should also point out that everyone seemed happy with how the 'winner' was chosen, and the parents of all the young men involved saw what a tricky predicament Marie and the staff were in once the prize was won.

Despite not having a lot of time for either of the teams who will be on the pitch on saturday I would imagine that the winner will have an awesome day out - the first FA Cup Final at the new wembley !! wow. I am sure it will be a day this young man remembers for the rest of his life.
SW

Tony Ealey said...

Here's the link to the fabulous piece of work:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/academy/6257447.stm
The lads at the club will be working on another film with Eek Films called 'The Eighth Wonder of Kenny', funded by The Culture Company it'll look at the history of Kensington and touch on the subject of bullying and the effect of youth gun culture.