Hussein Mohammed began his Fulham journey at a Premier League Kicks session aged nine. Today he is an integral part of Fulham’s Youth and Community provision, building better lives through sport for thousands of local young people. We sat down to understand how Hussein has developed from participant to facilitator over the years.
Tell us about your first experiences at Fulham Kicks...
That’s where I met most of the friends I have now. I used to attend the Kicks session down the road from where I lived, it was free football on a 3G pitch, and it allowed us to play football weekly and get to know more people in our area. We had regular tournaments at Tooting & Mitcham, you would get a group of friends together go down and play. I was one of the youngest ones there, I was like nine when I started and then I kept going to Kicks until I was nearly 18, maybe a year or so before I started working here.
How did you come to work at Fulham?
When I got to about 19-20, I was looking for other teams to play for. The coach I had at the time was also a coach at Kicks and knew my family very well. I had done my FA Level 2 when I was younger so he said come coach with Fulham for a bit while you look for another club. So I started working for Fulham on Kicks and on After-School Clubs and other programmes and started to enjoy it more. I had to ask myself do I want to want to play football or do I want to coach more? I think starting at Fulham made me want to coach more. Before that I hadn’t had a regular job or anything, it was always football, football, football. I had played under a lot of good coaches but I hadn’t coached before.
How have you changed from starting work then to now?
One of the main things is knowing that football isn’t just about football. Before, my whole life was just literally make it pro from football, that’s it. Now I’ve realised you can do so much through football, it brings a lot of people together, especially young people, and through that you can help them so much more. They don’t have to be the greatest footballer to come to sessions, they’re just someone who enjoys football and there are ways that you can help them throughout their lives. It’s opened my eyes up more to what’s going on in the world and how much I can do for people.
What does your day to day involve today?
My role now is Youth Engagement Officer, basically I help run the Kicks programme, so the programme I used to go to as a kid, now I’m helping running it. With that I mostly look at the holiday activities, try and get trips organised, more sessions and little fun workshops. I also run our competitions, like Kicks League, a monthly tournament for all our Kicks participants. I organise fixtures for some of the Kicks teams and tournaments we can attend and be a part of. I also run the Kicks Development Club, where we have kids that take football a bit more seriously, positive attitude, positive behaviour, we try and find pathways to pro clubs, semi pro clubs or our Football and Education programmes through weekly training sessions and regular fixtures.
Kicks Development Club (KDC) is an activity of your making, tell us more about it...
I was lucky because I was at a Premier League club when I was younger, but some of my friends at Kicks who weren’t at Premier League clubs and were probably better than me, they didn’t have the opportunities or the people around them that could take them to places like KDC. I see the same at Kicks now, there’s a lot of talented young people who come from deprived areas who don’t have people looking after them in the right ways or coaching them in the right way. I think KDC as a programme is perfect for me because I understand both worlds. I understand what it takes to go from Kicks to pro or Kicks to semi pro clubs and I want to do as much as possible for those young people at Kicks who could make it pro or could have a life in football.
What would your advice be to young Kicks participants today?
Don’t forget to enjoy football, remember why you play in the first place. Having fun with a group of friends, that’s the best thing to get out of Kicks. Yeah, you can get a qualification and get a job out of it, but building relationships with the people around you, that are similar to you, I think that’s the most important thing.
