Football charity's 20 years sending kit to Africa

A charity that redistributes football kits in Africa and Nepal is celebrating 20 years of helping underprivileged children and adults.

The Taking Football to Africa and Beyond appeal, which operates from RAF Shawbury, in Shropshire, has visited more than 70 different countries, delivering about 425,000 items.

The team of volunteers are preparing for their next trip to Kenya to give out shirts, shorts, socks and footballs.

Run by Mark Smales and Neil Hope, the pair said they were grateful to football clubs from the Premier League down to grassroots teams who donated items.

"Once the kit stops coming in, or we lose some of our delivery routes, then that'll be it, we'll stop, but here we are just about to celebrate 20 years in May and it still keeps going," Hope said.

"To be honest, we don't very much ask for kit these days, it just keeps coming.

"When you see the kids and adults get the kit, it means the world to them. It's something that they now own and they've got very little."

The charity visits slum towns in Africa where tens of thousands of people live together in small areas.

"People live on a dollar, or $2 a day, keeping a family going, so if we give them a piece of football kit and there's no way they could ever afford it, it means the world," Hope said.

He added that while it was fairly straightforward to collect the shirts, the hard part was distributing them.

The charity takes volunteers who pay to travel and has taken about 120 people so far.

"Football to Africa operates as a no finance - there's no money going through it all," he said. "People pay their own way."

The team fly to Kenya on 12 February ahead of marking their 20th anniversary in May.

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