On Thursday 23rd March, Wycombe Wanderers Foundation were pleased to welcome to Adams Park 120 children from Carrington Junior School and Lent Rise School for our Show Racism the Red Card event.
The event was led by Paul Hill and Paul Roberts from the SRtRC organisation, running workshops that focussed on ‘What is racism,’ stereotyping, discrimination and what you can do to become an active citizen to stamp out racist attitudes and behaviour. Using the power of football, the Year Five children were encouraged to question and challenge their own thoughts in order to develop an understanding of everyone around them regardless of skin colour, religion, nationality and culture.
We were also pleased to welcome PCSO Catharine Bennett from Thames Valley Police, who led a workshop on Anti-social behaviour and hate crime. Again, lots of thought-provoking issues, raising many questions and an understanding of roles and responsibilities within modern society.
The day concluded with a question and answer session with two special guests: Wanderers captain, Joe Jacobson and goalkeeper, Max Stryjek. Questions included their experiences of racism on the football pitch, how have incidents been dealt with and how do they think we can stop racist behaviour.
Paul Hill commented at the end, “As ever, we have had a great day here at Wycombe Wanderers. The children worked well, coming up with some excellent questions, thoughts and challenging any preconceptions. There was a really good energy about the day, during every session.”
Show Racism the Red Card was established in January 1996, by then Newcastle United goalkeeper Shaka Hislop.
In 1990s Newcastle, Shaka was at a petrol station near St James’ Park when he was confronted with a group of young people shouting racist abuse at him. After one of the group realised that they had been shouting at Shaka Hislop, the Newcastle United football player, they came over to ask for an autograph. Shaka refused.
