Mission Statement

To provide a safe and encouraging environment where young people can come together and enjoy structured sports and learning opportunities.

We help the young people of Lambeth fulfil their potential and improve their well-being both physically and emotionally through targeted support to children and families.

Saturday Club 2017 #This Girl Can Lambeth
Thank you so much for Thursday football, it means so much to us. It is such an outlet to forget about all the stress and bad things that have happened. It has brought us so close together and helped so many of us in our everyday life.

Participant, aged 24 (Elders’ Football)

I would like to thank St. Matthew’s for the support you have given my daughter. She originally joined girls-only football on Saturday morning to improve her team work / playing skills and she ended up getting more than just that.

Parent

I regularly come into contact with some extremely positive and focused partnership workers. One such is the St. Matthew’s Project in Brixton. The staff are unbelievably hard working and passionate about their work and provide excellent diversion through sport for young males.

Kevin Gould, Metropolitan Police, Lambeth.

20 Years in the Community!

The St. Matthew’s Project officially started life in the summer of 2004 and developed, literally, from a kick-about in Brockwell Park for young people from one estate in Brixton, St. Matthew’s. The origins of the project are linked to an even smaller ‘community’ – Springett House – a large L-shaped block on the southern edge of the estate, backing onto Brixton Water Lane. The young people from Springett House were initially extremely reluctant to interact with their peers from the rest of the estate but barriers were broken down by organising a series of football sessions and matches and the creation of ‘Springett F.C’, the forerunner of today’s St. Matthew’s F.C.

The young people from Springett soon came to see themselves as part of the wider estate community and that they had many shared interests and experiences with other young people from around the estate. Using the same approach, the young people from St. Matthew’s came to interact with their peers from the nearby Tulse Hill Estate and surrounding streets, overcoming long-standing hostilities and coming together under the SMP banner.

The inaugural summer holiday scheme of 2004 ran two days a week for the six weeks of the holiday. An award ceremony in the St. Matthew’s Estate tenants’ hall at the end of the scheme provided the opportunity for everyone to say goodbye and go back to whatever they were doing, but twenty years later, here we are.

As 2024 marks SMP’s twentieth anniversary, we are planning a number of events to honour this achievement!

‘It was only supposed to last for six weeks and I never planned a single day of it really. God moves in mysterious ways…’ – Lino ‘Lee’ Dema, founder.

The Project now regularly engages with over 350 young people every week from across the Lambeth area.

It has developed over 200 F.A qualified coaches from levels 1 to 3, developed girls’ football in Lambeth and consistently provided free, fun football activities to young people living within the most deprived 10% Deprivation Deciles nationally for crime and living environment. In addition to football specific activities we’ve arranged trips, encouraged youth volunteering, delivered accredited training courses and healthy lifestyle and mental wellbeing workshops, and provided one-to-one support to our young people wherever necessary.

Working closely with Lambeth Council and other local agencies, we have now established a recognised hub in Brockwell Park, continuing to attract young people from across the SW2 / SW9 area and providing them with new opportunities for personal development, in order to help them fulfill their potential.

Aims and Objectives

  • To act as a resource for young people up to the age of 25 living in the Tulse Hill and Brixton area by providing advice and assistance and organising programmes of physical, educational and other activities.
  • To promote community participation in healthy recreation, in particular children and young people aged between 3 and 25 by the provision of facilities for playing football and other sports.
  • To provide a safe and encouraging environment where young people can come together and enjoy structured sports and learning opportunities.
  • To help the young people of the Tulse Hill and Brixton area fulfil their potential and improve their well-being both physically and emotionally through targeted support to children and families.
F.A Level-1 course 2018
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Why SMP?

  • More than 20 years of experience of being embedded in the local community.
  • Established in and trusted by a local community often sceptical of ‘projects’ as they have been used and let down by so many; SMP make a difference to local young people’s lives over a long period of time.
  • Founded by someone who knows and cares about the local area and respects and is respected by the people in it.
  • Core staff have been developed from within the programmes; i.e., young people work with someone ‘just like them’.
  • Pioneer of a true grassroots ‘trauma-informed’ approach.
  • Focused on early intervention and well-being, understanding how that can have a profound impact on the lives of young people with complex backgrounds and needs.
  • Knows the local young people better than any other organisation (so much so that it sometimes provides them as participants to other programmes).
  • Works in the community beyond the programmes; facilitating relations and conversations between young people and schools, police and other local service providers.
  • Has maintained a £10 signing-on fee for St Matthew’s FC since inaugural 2005-06 season, ensuring accessibility for local young people.
@smpbrixton