The Albion Foundation are delighted to be celebrating Foundation Day at Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship fixture between Albion and Sunderland.
In the spirit of Foundation Day, let us take a look at the last 12 months at The Albion Foundation, from Wellbeing to Behaviour Change and Active Lifestyles to Disability Sport – the Foundation cater for all in our local community.
Here are some of the many things we have done from April 2024 to April 2025 – don’t forget to text ‘TAF’ and the amount you wish to donate (EG – TAF10) to 70470.
April 2024
Almost 12 months ago, The Albion Foundation were receiving plenty of accolades for their work in the local community. Foundation staff travelled to London to scoop the 2024 Community Club of the Year award for the Sky Bet Championship at the EFL Community Awards 2024.
Meanwhile, fundraising-extraordinaire “Blind” Dave Heeley picked up the Supporter of the Season at the same award ceremony, having raised over £30,000 for the Foundation during that season, despite recovering from a full knee reconstruction.
May 2024
In May, Foundation director Rob Lake walked side-by-side with Albion Blind and other volunteers across a gruelling distance of 120-miles from Wembley Stadium to The Hawthorns. The charity’s Blind Walk helped to raise crucial funds for the Foundation’s disability sport programme, along with raising awareness for the visually impaired.
- Foundation Director completes Blind Walk in "Blind" Dave Heeley's honour.
- Steve Meeson delighted with Blind Walk impact.
Towards the end of the month, the Foundation successfully hosted the Sandwell Inclusion Open Cup, an invigorating friendly competition open to a variety of disabilities and learning difficulties. 25 teams participated in the event at the Baggies’ Academy site, spanning U12 and U16s age categories – this book-ended the Sandwell Inclusion League.
June 2024
During the following month, our Footy Phonics intervention was lauded nationally by the Premier League Charitable Fund and National Literacy Trust. The Foundation ran a six-week intervention at Moorlands Primary School, which helped Abel, a year one pupil at Moorlands Primary School, to find the fun in reading and writing.
Albion Blind secured an FA Disability Cup victory, beating Royal National College for the Blind at St George’s Park with Paul Iyobo scoring a hat-trick in a 3-2 win. The following day, Albion PFC beat Aspire PFC 2-0 to secure their first FA Disability Cup title since 2021 – both games were covered live on TNT Sports.
July 2024
The Foundation’s summer of fun continued into June, as we hosted our “Blind” Dave Heeley Colour Run at Sandwell Valley Country Park in partnership with Sandwell Council’s SHAPE Festival. Over 200 participants joined to fundraise for the Foundation, and left tinted with a multitude of colours, while knowing they’d helped the local community to strengthen.
Towards the end of July, the Foundation hosted its first-ever Zipwire across The Hawthorns event, in which over 300 daring Baggies fans experienced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, soaring from the top of the Birmingham Road End to the Millennium Corner. The event raised a grand total of £30,440.74 for The Albion Foundation.
August 2024
Alongside our regular camp provision, which includes boys, girls and SEND Camps, the summer continued in excellent fashion, as the Foundation welcomed the entire Albion men’s first-team squad to the Academy site.
Players joined in with our Kellogg’s Summer Football Camp at Sandwell Academy, while completing a Q&A with a diverse range of fan groups and joining in with a Blind Football session.
Outside of the Foundation’s work in getting the local community active, our HATCH Project continued to encourage young adults to break into the world of employment. Jordy Webb joined the programme and gained a placement at the Albion Storage Warehouse where he was responsible for stocktaking.
September 2024
Team Blind Dave began September with a mammoth 1000km cycle across the Western Front Way, with Dave becoming the first blind man to do so. The fundraising-extraordinaire was joined by a host of staff members from the Foundation and its partners through Switzerland, Belgium and France, following the Western Front Way.
Albion Blind were also at it again as they won their first Bučovice Blind Cup in Czechia, where they beat German outfit FC St.Pauli in the final. It was just the second time the Baggies had entered into the competition, and they won every game along the way.
October 2024
The Foundation were proud to support World Mental Health Day 2024, through a variety of initiatives for staff and the local community. Our Team Talk initiative was highlighted, which is a weekly session that runs every Monday with the aim of supporting men’s mental health through football.
Participants engage in a wellbeing café, a safe environment where can chat openly before enjoying a small-sided football match.
October was also Black History Month, for which our Premier League Inspires team hosted four local schools to celebrate traditional African-Caribbean music, took part in a poetry workshop with poet Samantha Jones and had the chance to create and poetry based around Black History Month.
November 2024
To raise awareness for Anti-Bullying Week 2024 in mid-November, the Foundation’s Premier League Primary Stars team kept their lessons in line with the theme of Choose Respect. School Partnerships Manager Glenn Short delivered an engaging workshop to 30 children at Hawthorn Primary School in Kingstanding.
The Primary Stars team didn’t stop there, and later that month celebrated a Reading Stars intervention at Moorlands Primary School in association with the National Literacy Trust. Community Coach Owen Jones inspired a group of year five children to enjoy reading during his lessons and their spare time, while improving all-important literacy skills.
December 2024
An under-18s girls football team representing the Foundation went on to win the Premier League Kicks Christmas Truce Tournament in Ypres, Belgium. The side were invited to play as part of the Premier League’s commitment to creating more opportunities for girls and young women to play football, and beat Chelsea, Swansea and Southampton along the way.
Albion Powerchair Football Club captain and coach Chris Gordon was welcomed into the Foundation Hall of Fame. His achievements were celebrated with video messages from loved ones and fellow players within the sport.
Foundation staff also took part in the annual ‘Give Back’ in which selected families and participants were given gift parcels which included Christmas gifts and essentials to use throughout the festive period.
January 2025
The Foundation’s PAN Disability teams were given a vital £10,000 grant from the SkyBet EFL Building Foundations fund to support the development of weekly sessions. The fund increased the number of lives the Foundation can improve, with participants able to attend for free following the recent injection of cash.
Our Early Years six-week specialist schools programmes continued to make a difference as pupils built foundation skills within football. Coaches Nathan Russon and James Davies delivered the workshop at Grace Mary Primary School, with confidence growing amongst pupils.
February 2025
February brought a busy month for the Foundation, beginning with the Premier League Inspires and Primary Stars teams hosting a Children’s Mental Health Week workshop in partnership with St Michael’s CE High School Student Voice. Six different local primary schools joined in a day of mental health-themed activities, allowing pupils to get to grips with their emotions and feelings.
Meanwhile, the Premier League Kicks team named Nural Islam as our Premier League Community Captain for his work in engaging young people in sport across the local region. Islam had aided the Foundation with organising community-building events such as the Open Iftar and South Asian Emerging Talent Festival.
In other news, the Foundation hosted a Utilita Football Festival in partnership with the EFL, where over 300 children, seven Albion first-team players, EFL Championship & EFL Cup trophies and an EA Sports gaming van graced our Ray Hall Lane base.
March 2025
The Foundation celebrated International Women’s Day 2025 by detailing Girls Game Programme player Asiah Janny’s journey from dropping out of football, to becoming a member of the Albion Women’s first-team and playing for her country.
In the same month, Albion Blind reclaimed their National Blind Football League title with one matchday to spare, beating both league opponents across the weekend. Italian forward Paul Iyobo scored eight of the nine goals across the weekend
Foundation volunteers also walked the breadth of the Jordan desert to find the Lost City of Petra while raising money for their local community.
April 2025
April 2025 marks an exciting month for The Albion Foundation, and begins with Foundation Day – so be sure to dig deep and give what you can to help us to support our local community.
Impressed by what you’ve seen? Then keep believing in us and text ‘TAF’ and the amount you wish to donate (EG – TAF10) to 70470.
