{"id":2716,"date":"2020-05-28T14:28:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T12:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/?p=2716"},"modified":"2023-02-17T17:45:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T16:45:54","slug":"hackney-wick-home-sweet-home-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/28\/hackney-wick-home-sweet-home-fc\/","title":{"rendered":"HACKNEY WICK, HOME SWEET HOME FC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It’s end of 2015 in Hackney Central, Bobby Kasanga is standing at the entrance of the neighborhood’s Tesco, asking for donations to the locals. This is where we met him for the first time, few weeks after moving to the area. Our adventure was starting as well as Hackney Wick FC’s history. Released from jail few months earlier, Bobby had the time to think about his future behind the bars. As he explained us this day, he had a simple goal: bring back Saturday football to Hackney. And he had a special plan to do so.<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

‘Think Outside the Blox’<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hackney doesn’t really lack of football during the weekend. You have Hackney Marshes with its 71 grounds especially with the Sunday League. You can even find Premier League at the border with Newham since West Ham moved to London Stadium in August 2016. In this environment, Bobby Kasanga’s idea is to make of Hackney Wick FC an integral actor of the local community and not only through claiming for the neighborhood’s identity. He has a simple idea: every club’s player has to commit for the community through different actions such as seeding plants in the local park or helping at the local cemetary…<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With this idea, Bobby Kasanga’s bigger thinking is to avoid the youth of the area to reproduce the path that led him to be a gang member in his younger days. He confessed in different interviews of dreaming of professional football as a teenager. When he realised he might not make it as a pro, he started taking part in a local gang. By giving to the players of his club the opportunity to see outside of the football only at an early age, he offers them a view that goes outside of the borough’s borders. An initiative that Bobby Kasanga called ‘Think Outside the Blox’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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