Beyond the Pitch: Six years of Irons Supporting Foodbanks and uniting the West Ham community

Nothing to Celebrate: The FSF Network

Everton and Liverpool ‘Fans Supporting Foodbanks’ grassroots charity celebrates 10 years was a recent headline on ITV Granada Reports. Yes, they were formed 10 years ago, but after all that time there is nothing to celebrate. In fact FSF co-founder and good friend Dave Kelly was subsequently quoted on BBC News saying ‘we will celebrate when our charity is shut down’, which is the same opinion for all the other fan foodbanks that have been set up during that time, and form part of a national network. Whilst our own Irons Supporting Foodbanks (ISF) has been going for almost six years, other club’s fans at Newcastle United, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Ipswich Town and Southend United, plus a number in Scotland have set up their own schemes during that time, with or without the support of their clubs.

West Ham’s Club Support and Community Showcasing

We at ISF were fortunate that West Ham supported our initiative from day one and have included our participation in the annual Players’ Project, and also organised the players’ food collection for Newham Foodbank every Christmas. Those in the network, who are encouraging other clubs to set up their own schemes, believe that there is so much that the local fanbase at our clubs can do to support the local communities and show the football fan community in a positive light. We recently had the pleasure of chatting with football journalist and commentator Henry Winter, who dropped by our gazebo to make a donation and enquire about what we do. He knows of the similar work they do on Merseyside so it was a great opportunity to showcase the support of the east end community in looking after our own. Henry subsequently posted details on his X account, which so far has had close to 60,000 views.

Local Outreach and Global Disaster Relief

Whilst we generally operate across east London and Essex, we have in the past helped other appeals further afield. Collectively we were able to deliver 17 tonnes of food aid following the earthquake in Morocco’s Atlas mountains. More recently we were able to supply new clothes for an appeal for supplies to help communities in St Vincent following the cyclone damage. And in the last few days we are working with connections in Dagenham to deliver two pallet-loads of new clothes to Jamaica, following the hurricane Melissa disaster. Obviously when I write ‘we’, it means the whole of our generous West Ham fan community, and thank you all again for your ongoing support.