By Andrew Sherwood
Published: 21 May 2008

http://www.totallyjewish.com

Sir Trevor Brooking, Director of Football Development at the Football Association, has told TJ how he believes football can act as a powerful tool to help Jewish children integrate with kids of other faiths and religions.

Writing in this week’s Another View, Brooking was present at West Ham’s Upton Park ground on Monday for the ‘One Ball, One Game, One Community event, and said: “One of the main goals of the FA is to open the doors pf participation to everyone regardless of race and religion…events like this allow different communities from the local area coming together and united in their passion for playing the game.

“It was great to see Jewish youngsters making new friends with Muslim and Sikh children and to see them all enjoying sport made it a great day for everyone involved.”

Thirty Jewish schoolchildren from Clore Tikva, Ilford Jewish Primary and Simon Marks were amongst 170 who took part in an event which saw the Board of Deputies launch their “Shared Futures” football day for Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh & Christian children.

The project is designed to promote respect for diversity and deepen understanding between communities and schools through a broad range of programmes and together with The FA, the Metropolitan Police and the National Association of Muslim Police,

Alex Goldberg, Director of the Board of Deputies’ Community Issues Division said: “It was a great event, a very interesting day, and one that we were very happy to be a part of.

“This event is all about bringing diverse communities together under the banner of the ‘beautiful game’, with the key being to bring together faith schools, those schools with one predominant faith and others through a series of sports, arts, environmental and social action-related programmes.”

Looking ahead to future events, Goldberg said: “We will be in discussions with the FA about hopefully carrying out similar events, looking at possibly staging such events at other Premier League grounds and around the country too.”