THERE'S ONLY #ONESLOUGH

Printed in the National League South game v Braintree Town Saturday 7^th December 2019 We won 1-0 in front of 739

I was recently at the funeral of my Uncle John. John was a black man growing up in Slough in the 1950's. In the swinging sixties he started dating a white woman. I remember listening in disbelief at the stories of people deliberately crossing the road to spit in her face for the crime of going out with someone a different colour. Although not so shocked at the stories of my dad and John taking on the world when people insulted him! When John started dating Pam, people told them it would never last and her parents wouldn't have him in the house. They were married for over 50 years and in the end her parents accepted John for who he was rather than the colour of his skin.

One of our players said that because of his mental health he needed a break from the game. Such honesty would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. Remember that dirtrag of a paper the Sun piling on boxer Frank Bruno for his mental health issues? But the outpouring of support to Simon Dunn was heart warming and will in turn help others to speak out, because we have a mental health crisis in this country. It's shocking to think that the biggest killer of men under 45 is suicide, so it was great to see people lose their flowing locks and raise over £2,000 for MIND at last weeks headshaveathon.

We all want to belong, to feel part of something, and football clubs like Slough have a massive part to play, but also have to be more than just about ninety minutes of football for that too happen.

If Slough Town wants to grow its crowds, we need to better reflect the place it represents. Since Mark Bailey's inspired appointment as Community Engagement Officer every game now feels like Non League Day with different ways being tried to get new punters through the turnstiles. Last week 61 people, mainly police officers, took advantage of free tickets for public sector workers. Today is the beginning of the #OneSlough campaign with free tickets handed out to mosques, temples etc. The club has also just signed up to the Kick It Out Equality Charter.

As Mark said “My remit will be to raise the profile of the club with the local community, the outcome of which should be a significant increase in attendance on match days, not only in terms of overall numbers but also the diversity of the crowd. My absolute focus from now to the start of the season will be getting more kids down to Arbour Park. We will be offering schools, youth clubs and youth football teams in the area free tickets and match day experiences at every home game. Alongside this, we will be targeting other areas of the population we feel are under-represented in our support base.”

It shouldn't just be up to governments to provide for everything but it shouldn't be cutting safety nets for those that fall on hard times. The charity I run works with adults with learning disabilities and children struggling at school often with their mental health. We have had to deal with a £36,000 cut in the past year – for a charity that had a turnover of just £100,000 that's a hefty slice. Adults with disabilities have their services shut and are then sent to us with no extra resources to look after them. School kids that don't fit into educations square pegs need support more than ever but schools can't afford to pay for our services. I'm a parent-governor at a secondary school which has had to cut £150,000 off its budget last year while the primary school I work in one of Brighton's poorest estates, has laid off a dozen staff and lost a staggering £388,000 in four years. Is this how the 5^th richest country in the world values education? The OFSTED inspectors then pile in. Instead of measuring where a pupil starts to where they end up, insist that all children are the same; forget the poverty, forget that some are 18 months developmentally behind their peers when they start nursery, apparently they are as equal as the most affluent schools in the city! Which is the footballing equivalent of complaining that Slough Town can't beat Chelsea despite the huge gulf in wealth and resources.

Everything has become back to front. We have a Minister of Loneliness while pubs, libraries, community centres not to mention football clubs where people can meet and feel less lonely, are closing. We have a Health and Well Being Champion while mental health support services are becoming increasingly impossible to access. My local primary school has free bagels for children at breakfast. Wouldn't it make more sense if everyone had decent enough wages with capped rents so they could afford to feed their kids properly? And according to Shelter at least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain on Christmas day – the highest number for 12 years. So it's all very well for the Tories to shout about more nurses, more services, more sticky toffee pudding, but ain't they the ones that have been in charge for ten years busy dismantling it all?

Christmas can be hard for some, but I think the club creating Mark's community engagement role is such a positive step that can only be a good thing not just for the club but for the town of Slough. And maybe, just maybe get some people to realise, no matter how different we are, if you cut us, we all still bleed.