Football is for everyone: building a better sport with Bohemians 

Bohemian Football Club have partnered with 26 Dublin based primary schools to deliver an inclusivity-based programme to fifth and sixth class kids.  

Seventy workshops for the “Belonging to a Fair City” programme have been staged across classrooms in the D1, D7 and D11 area.  

The programme aims to challenge anti-refugee sentiment among school kids, along with promoting inclusivity around gender, differently abled people, and the LGBTQ community.  

Focusing on three key aspects of empathy, perspective, and diversity, the workshop uses activities and engagement to challenge preconceptions kids may have about immigrants, but also about their own history.  

“Fifth and sixth class is a great time to start this conversation, they’re learning about the Famine and reading books such as Under the Hawthorne Tree. We’re getting them to relate it back to our own history,” said Aibhínn Conway, head of community at the club. 

“Since 1810 over ten million Irish people have emigrated, we ask how many people have aunts or uncles in say Australia or Canada, always trying to relate it back to them.” 

The programme was developed by the club in response to the numerous riots outside direct provision centres, along with the rise in racist rhetoric nationwide. It’s funded by the Community Safety Fund, using money seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau and put back into the area to improve the community.  

Junior Achievement Ireland designed the programme, with workbooks and games designed for collaborative learning, letting students bounce ideas off each other. 

Each class enters a poster design competition, with the winner receiving free VIP Box tickets to a match in Dalymount Park, as well as a free ticket to any women’s match included in every workbook. 

“Our plan is to reach as many people as we possibly can, we’d love to see other League of Ireland clubs pick this up and deliver it in their own areas,” added Conway. 

Bohemians has a reputation for their progressive stance on topics such as inclusion, climate change or even Palestine and it all comes back to the fact that the club is owned by its members.  

“If you look at the Premier League it’s gone so global, so big, and so many people just can’t actually access it. That’s not how football started, it was a working-class game,” explained Conway. 

“We believe the power of the badge can have a positive impact, not only in the local area, but on a bigger scale. There are people sitting in the stands who might be gay, or who might be immigrants, and there’s no reason we can’t try have a positive impact.”