Sportspiel

Changing Lives FC are a football team with a story.   Every training session, and during every game, you can hear around a dozen different languages – that’s because each member of the squad is a migrant, refugee or asylum seeker.   All of them have fled war, terror or they are in desperate search for a better life. They are all young men who would be extremely vulnerable if left to fend for themselves.   Joining us on this podcast is their manager David Simmons, a PE teacher living in Harlow, in Essex, who is also the founder of Changing Lives Community Services – a project dedicated to keeping vulnerable youngsters out of the hands of gangs and violence.   David is no stranger to extraordinary journeys – he was once threatened by a six-year-old with a knife, which is partly what motivated him to step up and make a difference.   But this football team has been a challenge like no other. Getting a group of players who don’t all speak the same language is difficult enough in itself but that’s made all the more