Monday 30 January 2012

Rhythm 17 - Craig Bellamy

As footballer’s reputations go, there are few worse than that of Craig Bellamy. Numerous teams and signing bonuses, fights in night clubs, fallings out with teammates including golf club weaponry...you name it, Craig has allegedly done it.

You would think of potentially hundreds of current players who are overtly ‘nicer’ than Bellamy on the pitch, and would consider a similar amount more likely to give away hundreds of thousands of pounds to start a football academy in a developing country like Sierra Leone – the seventh poorest in the entire world.

You know where I’m going with this by now. And as it goes, we happened to visit the Craig Bellamy Football Academy at the tail end of last year. It was quite the experience.

The basic premise of the academy is to recruit the best young players in Sierra Leone, put them through a rigorous training scheme and high quality schooling, with the end goal being that some of them are able to gain scholarships to overseas universities in which the next generation of ‘leaders’ – read into that what you will – that will drive the development of the country on their return.

On the day we visited, the academy team were playing another local team on the best pitch in the entire country. That isn’t hard, of course – the national stadium pitch is effectively weeds – but the surface was good enough for the football to be a high standard.

One player stood out, in more ways than one. Taller than the rest by about a foot, the young striker bagged a hat trick like it was routine. It turns he was one of three players to train with Cardiff City over the summer, in which he more than impressed. Watch this space.

What is truly great about the initiative is the national youth league that Bellamy has set up with the hard work of the organisation that supports the academy. There was simply no such thing in existence when the academy started, but now it is really taking shape.

The wonderfully quirky and forward thinking aspect of the league is that academic achievement and endeavour are taken into account. As such, if a player hasn’t been to school, or has misbehaved in some way, he simply can’t play in the game at the weekend.

As ludicrous coincidence would have it, a documentary entitled ‘Craig Bellamy’s African Dream’ is on ITV4 this week. I would heartily encourage you to watch it. See below for a preview clip:

 

So there you have it, Craig Bellamy is a nice guy after all. And given the way he’s playing right now, his win bonuses will keep the academy and foundation going for a good while yet. Long may it continue.