What if a simple game of football could change lives, build communities, and foster resilience? That’s exactly what’s happening with Sutton United Foundation’s walking football and Parkinson’s football initiatives.
00:58 - 01:27
Sutton Podcast: Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast. It's the Sutton podcast in association with LuckystarGin. I'm your host Mike and with me on this peek behind the Amber Kirtland special episode we have got Chris and Karen from the Sutton United Foundation. They probably don't know they're represented in the whole foundation, I've just laid that on them now, but that's what they're doing on the show. Thanks for joining us, guys. We are gonna be talking about some of the events and programs that you run, including the walking football. There's a couple of
01:27 - 01:58
Sutton Podcast: groups there and there's some slight differences and some of the partnerships that we have with other charities, and there's other little bits on my list. We do love hearing from you all. Join the conversations. Let me know more of these kind of things that you want to have conversations about. We want to chat with other fans. Share it on social media. Tag me in it at Stuttgart Podcast. And give us all those lovely thumbs up on YouTube you know how much I love them. Chris we start with you tell us a little bit about yourself and
01:58 - 02:00
Sutton Podcast: your role within the foundation.
02:00 - 02:43
Chris: Yeah hi Mike So I'm the men's health and exercise coach for Sutton United Foundation. I've been working with the Foundation for about 6 months now. This is part of a long planned career break that I've given myself and just wanted to do something really that combines 2 big passions of mine, 1 football and 2 supporting great causes in the local community. Now I didn't realise before I contacted the Foundation that actually I could tick those 2 boxes through the Foundation. So that's been that's been such a great point for me to discover and learn this year.
02:43 - 03:02
Chris: So as I said I've been supporting for it for a number of months now particularly around the say the Parkinson's football and walking football sessions that we'll come on to and more recently just looking to start to develop some of
03:02 - 03:02
Speaker 2: our engagement with other very
03:02 - 03:03
Chris: strong charities in the borough.
03:05 - 03:19
Sutton Podcast: We obviously talked about them, I did see the list and I was like, hey, I've had them on before, I've had them on as well. So there's lots of nice crossovers. That's good. Karen, we did a little test run the other day and you mentioned that you've got no knowledge of football whatsoever. Oh, no, hang on. Sorry.
03:19 - 03:20
Karen: No, I haven't.
03:20 - 03:21
Sutton Podcast: You're a Liverpool fan. Sorry.
03:21 - 03:24
Karen: I am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's correct.
03:26 - 03:30
Sutton Podcast: So tell us a little bit about yourself and your kind of role in this.
03:31 - 04:04
Karen: So basically, I'm a 49 almost year old lady that likes to play football. I've played football since I was 7 years of age. Supported Liverpool as you just said, since 7 years of age. My very local team is Sutton United which is literally I can see them from across my window from where I'm sitting. I haven't played football for a long time. And I saw on Southern United's Instagram about a Parkinson's walking football. And I emailed Bobby and I just said, is this suitable for a 49 year old woman with Parkinson's and said come down, join
04:04 - 04:34
Karen: in, see how you feel and see how you get on. That was back in September and it's now December and I've played every week other than 1 week when I was on holiday and I'm far really enjoying it. It's set up really well, Chris is amazing, Harry's amazing and they're just very patient with us guys who no longer can sort of, well, I can run but I'm not supposed to, play football properly. So yeah, It's a really good team spirit that we've got at the moment, which is really good.
04:36 - 04:56
Sutton Podcast: And this is going to be a slight curveball and I'm sorry straight away. So you've played football for a long time. Obviously that would be slightly different experience to my 7 year old, who, if he wants to play football now, is there a lot of jealousy of what's happening or are you go for it girls? Because I know how I would feel.
04:57 - 05:28
Karen: When I was 7, up until I was sort of an adult really, there was no ladies football teams. So I used to play with the boys at school and then men and I have 3 sons and a husband that all play football. So I always joined in. I did a trial for Southern United ladies back when I was 18 and things got in the way, you know, men, boyfriends, whatever you want to call it, and I did pursue it and I wish I had done really. So I did have a chance at breaking into the ladies
05:28 - 05:40
Karen: team back then, so that was like 30 years ago, but I've never really played a proper game or anything like that. I just enjoy leisurely playing really and just having a bit of fun with it.
05:40 - 06:16
Sutton Podcast: Yeah because it's 1 of my major bug bears. I've got 2 daughters and the grief when you see, I don't know if I've used social media, but any of the grief that ladies, goalkeepers especially get, and it's like, come on, the goals are bigger than they are. And So yeah, it does wind me up, but we're not talking about what winds me up. We're going to be... I start... And podcast news, sorry to everyone. I skipped the weekend because I have an absolutely disorganized life at the moment. It is all coming back to us, but there
06:16 - 06:45
Sutton Podcast: wasn't an awful lot to talk about. We lost 1 nil, so there wasn't a lot to talk about, we lost 1-0 so there wasn't a lot to talk about. But we're going to have a little chat about the walking football. Now I have spoken to Bobby and Harry and I did a little thing last year for the EFL Week of Action. So I think Simon I had on, and we had a little chat about the walking football. So I have got some knowledge. But if you could give us a little bit about the groups you run,
06:45 - 06:52
Sutton Podcast: Chris, we'll start with you on this. Tell us about the 2 groups and how they differ or cross over as well.
06:53 - 07:33
Chris: Yeah, so as you say, the walking football is a very well-established group now. There are around 35 or 40 regulars on the list, typically 20-25 of them come down each week to play. Depending on numbers, it's either 2 teams, say 9, 10, 11 aside, or if there's more than that, they split into 3 teams and have a number of short games so that there's always 1 team that's just taking a bit of a breather on the sideline for 5 or 10 minutes, but it's a really great group. It is entirely self-sufficient. I mean when I first
07:33 - 08:10
Chris: got involved I went along to have a look and see what needed doing. And it was great to take part and to see what they did. But, you know, they don't need me there from a week to week point of view, albeit very happy to step in and support as and when needed. So it's a very quick summary of the rules for those not familiar with walking football, the names and the title, but you know, non-contact, maximum 3 touches, that's something I hadn't appreciated before. So you can't just get the ball and walk away, you know,
08:10 - 08:49
Chris: if it's non-contact, can you just walk away on the pitch? 3 touches and of course, if your first touch isn't a good control, Your second touch is the control and your third touch is getting rid of it. So it is a very thoughtful game and certainly a lot harder mentally than I'd anticipated. We then as you said, we've set up a session called Parkinson's Football, so it's branded Parkinson's, but it is open to everyone. And perhaps we can come on to that in a bit more detail later on. But we factor in more of an all-round
08:49 - 08:54
Chris: exercise session. So the walking footballers play a match, a little bit of a
08:55 - 08:55
Speaker 2: warmup at
08:55 - 09:34
Chris: the start, but essentially they go along and have a match for an hour and a half with a couple of breaks in the middle. The Parkinson's session, we start off with a top-to-toe warmup. We then do a couple of exercise drills. So typically you know we'll put a number of cones around the pitch. We split into groups of 3 or 4 so that everyone's touching the ball as often as possible and we'll work on a number of different areas whether it is controlling the ball, passing, movement, different directions and also some cognitive challenges in there as
09:34 - 10:02
Chris: well. And that takes up about half the time. And then we play a walking football match at the end, walking football in inverted commas, because when the ball goes anywhere near Karen, we have to be a little bit creative in how we interpret walking. But you know, it's about us all going down there and having the workout that we need. So if someone's walking very fast, we don't want to we don't want to discourage that.
10:03 - 10:35
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, anyone watching on the video can see Karen's fine collection of trainers. I did say she needs some spotlights on them as well because some of them are looking very, very nice. So, Karen mentioned just before we came on that sometimes there's a bit of a crossover place. Some of the players who've done the walking football make up numbers, I don't know, or they just double up. Is the rules overly different? Because I know when we spoke earlier, Karen, I asked about the no contact if someone falls over, which is what I loved when I went
10:35 - 10:45
Sutton Podcast: to see the walking football, someone toppled over and everyone just stopped straight away, they were not carrying on. But is there similar kind of rules there, Chris? Yeah.
10:45 - 10:46
Speaker 2: Oh, Karen, sorry.
10:46 - 11:12
Karen: Yeah, even more so because I think if 1 of us with Parkinson's falls over, I think everyone sort of has a bit of a panic and they go, oh, 0, we better go and help them. I mean, obviously, it's not very nice falling over generally. But obviously, when you have a condition like Parkinson's, but it's a bit more progressed than I've got. It's hard to get up off the floor. So everyone sort of just stops and helps everyone to you know get back and just check if everyone's all right. So it's it's like there's a lot
11:12 - 11:22
Karen: of like team spirit when it comes to it. But I think everyone else just sort of would walk off and ignore the fact that someone's gone, you know, on their arse. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
11:23 - 11:45
Chris: I think, like I say on that, and again, having played a number of the walking football sessions as well, You know, at the end of the walking football games, you know, perhaps 2 or 3 days later, I'm sure everybody on the pitch could tell you the score. At the end of the Parkinson's games, I imagine that a lot of us have forgotten what the score was within half an hour because it was just about playing a game.
11:45 - 11:46
Sutton Podcast: Yeah.
11:46 - 12:01
Chris: And that's it. So the level of competition, whilst we all sort of try our hardest while we're playing within the Parkinson's group, it's much more about the camaraderie and just being on the pitch together and being too concerned about what the final score is.
12:01 - 12:23
Sutton Podcast: Right. Are you guys seeing my screen? Because the next question was, do you find people are drawn for the football or for the social aspect because when I spoke to Simon last year he kind of said he didn't really play football and he was just joined for something to do on a weekday. So do you think people are drawn to come and play football? Or is it the social side? Or is it
12:23 - 12:25
Speaker 2: they come for the football and stay for the social?
12:26 - 13:04
Chris: And I think it's across both sessions, It's a bit of both. We're certainly very focused within the Parkinson's group about making sure that we have a social session at the end so we actually go back to the clubhouse at the goals and we have tea and coffee and biscuits and we have a bit of a natter for those that can stay behind. But even the walking footballers, they tend to all head up to the Wetherspoons pub up at North Chame. So yeah, I think there's a very strong social aspect on both groups.
13:05 - 13:07
Sutton Podcast: Karen, from your point?
13:08 - 13:39
Karen: So basically, taking part in this has been a great help for me because I hadn't really spoken to anyone else with Parkinson's. I've only been diagnosed 2 years and haven't really, don't really know anybody else with it in the local area. So talking to the ladies and gents that are actually involved in the football has been quite good for me. It's sort of helped with my mental health as well. And if I have questions, we just throw them around. What usually while we're doing our warm up, but usually probably annoys Chris quite a lot because we're
13:39 - 14:08
Karen: chatting and banging our gums about something about some kind of tablet we're on or, you know, what's happening with this, that and the other. So I find it it's been very therapeutic to speak to other people and meeting. So there's me and 2 other ladies and just being, you know, with the people with the same thing as I've got really and the gents are very sort of, you know, they take a laugh and a joke and it's just quite nice just to be involved with it really. Yeah, I really enjoy it.
14:08 - 14:29
Sutton Podcast: Because that must be, I mean, it must be quite a scary thing because the only things you know are what the doctors are telling you and what you're, should never googled it, But you Google it, we all do it. And you're only seeing 1 side, but when you actually, people who live it and have lived it, it must be such a comfort to ask your silly questions.
14:29 - 14:32
Karen: Exactly, exactly, that's exactly right, yeah.
14:34 - 14:57
Sutton Podcast: So I'm gonna stick with you, Karen. Do you, well, you kind of saw the tweet that went out and you went, yeah, I'm gonna go with that. You have a link obviously to Sutton because you can see us from the garden. Yeah. How do you think other people are finding it? Is it just the link through Sutton or are we doing more?
14:57 - 15:33
Karen: I presume through Parkinson's UK because 1 of the ladies that joined us after it started up had gone to an open day at Parkinson's UK and she was told by another lady that had come on the very first session that it was on and she lived obviously within Sutton. So she joined us a couple of days, a couple of weeks later than everyone else. So they're promoting it. And so I think there's been a sort of word of mouth more than anything. Obviously, I don't really know how far the advertising has gone so far. But every
15:33 - 16:03
Karen: time I talk to anyone about what I do, I always promote, you know, what Sun United is doing for people with Parkinson's. And just because it's helped me so much with everything in my life, you know, it just exercising 1 you're supposed to exercise regularly. It's something that I love doing. I've played football, even though you know, I get out of breath quite a lot because my fitness levels aren't the same as they used to be. And, and like I say, it's just meeting people with the same condition, and just having an hour and a half
16:03 - 16:30
Karen: away from the normality of normal life and it just happened it fell on a wednesday when I don't work on a wednesday and so it just it seemed like it was fate basically so yeah but it's it's it's we are really sort of you know focused on playing football more you know as chris said I don't do the walking part sometimes because I can't, I can't stop myself from running sometimes. But I'll get there in the end.
16:30 - 16:47
Sutton Podcast: You there's also that psychological commitment of even if you didn't fancy anything you're gonna be like oh I can't let them down I've got it I've got to go hey you pay the part in enforcing you I mean that nice exercise
16:47 - 16:54
Karen: it definitely does I mean I don't I don't find myself forced to go I I look forward to it I enjoy it
16:54 - 16:59
Sutton Podcast: no I mean I mean yeah you're self-force not not no no I'm not dragging you
16:59 - 17:23
Karen: yeah no yeah no I like I look forward to it I know like tomorrow I'll be I'm going to play football and that's my thing. Like I say, it's an hour and a half where I haven't got to think about doing washing, putting the bins out, normal day-to-day stuff that us women have to do. I'm not working. It's something that I enjoy doing. So I really look forward to it every week.
17:23 - 17:46
Sutton Podcast: Right, I've already mentioned I've got 2 girls and a wife and I'm staring at the washing up now waiting for me to finish. So I must've got the wrong memo there. Chris, do you know how this started and why is it so important? Who came up with the idea and why is it so important to us?
17:46 - 18:24
Chris: So, I mean, the idea predates my involvement with the foundation. So this was something that hadn't started when I got involved, but the idea was very much there. I think, to be honest, when I chat with Bobby and Harry, There are so many things they would love to do. They've got so many ideas. It's a question of resources and us working out where we can be the most effective with the resources that we have. And for whatever reason, this was something that those guys really wanted to make sure that they were putting a lot of effort
18:24 - 19:04
Chris: into. And this is me coming along. It was very good timing for them to say, actually, Chris, you take this and have this as your baby and just run with this and see where you can see where you can get to with this and as I touched on earlier on it's branded Parkinson's but I'm really keen that we make this open and available to everyone so any listeners whether it's yourself or family or neighbors, people who have limited mobility, should we say, whether that is arthritis or recovering from surgery or just had a long-term injury or
19:04 - 19:43
Chris: just feeling the effects of age. Come down if you're moving around freely enough to join the more competitive walking football session, do that. Maybe you do that sometimes, but other times you're not feeling so great and you come and join our our group they're both on Wednesday mornings at goals so that the walking football is 10 o'clock and then we start at 1130 and there's nothing Karen touched on we've got a few people who managed to play in both both sessions and yeah sometimes you have people who you know pick and choose between the 2 so
19:43 - 19:54
Chris: there's no sort of commitment you don't have to say well I've got to go to this 1 every single week you just work out what's what's the right 1 for you and how you're feeling every single week.
19:56 - 20:17
Sutton Podcast: The follow-up question was this is branded as Parkinson's football You've said it's suitable for anyone with limited mobility. So you're definitely sure you haven't seen sight of these questions. How do we make the sessions inclusive and accessible? I mean, Karen, you do the sessions. So you've got a slightly different aspect to Chris, who obviously thinks, right,
20:17 - 20:19
Speaker 2: this is how it works. How does it work?
20:20 - 20:49
Karen: So basically, Chris is very good with our warm-up for starters and obviously with Parkinson's you have a lot of balance issues and so he makes always make sure if we can't do something if we're standing on 1 leg we're holding on in case we fall that sort of thing and so he's very in tune with what we need to do to warm everything up and so obviously not fall over by warming up and obviously the other drills that we do sometimes when we reverse things, we go in the opposite direction. Some of us get a bit
20:49 - 20:59
Karen: confused and get, you know, because it sort of puts us off of balance because that's what it does. That's what Parkinson's does. I mean, if you're going in 1 direction and all of a sudden you've gone the other way, or if he's getting us
20:59 - 20:59
Speaker 2: to run
20:59 - 21:31
Karen: backwards while doing something else, Sometimes it's a bit confusing. So it sort of helps keep your brain going as well. Actually remembering the drills that you've been told to do. And sometimes we ad-lib a little bit. Sometimes I get very frustrated when some people don't do it properly, but that's me, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist but yeah it's an all-round sort of you know warm-up and skill booster thing before we then have a game which I quite enjoy and I take quite seriously but like I say I'm very competitive and I don't like losing.
21:33 - 21:55
Sutton Podcast: So, I mean, we've kind of spoke about a little bit of the social side, but there's got to be physical. You've mentioned a lot of the warm up and even without the game, that sounds fantastic. But what do you find is the sort of physical benefits for you? And do you see others getting better over time with their physicality and playing football?
21:55 - 22:28
Karen: Sometimes it's okay. It depends if you injure yourself. So obviously because we haven't played games like this for a while. The first couple of weeks, I sort of pulled my thigh, which I wasn't expecting to do so soon, because I thought, oh, I can play football, gone in hell forever, and obviously hurt myself. So for the first sort of 5 or 6 weeks, I was a bit tentative on things, but that's now, that's improved and I feel a lot better and I know that I can sort of push myself that little bit. I think obviously the
22:28 - 22:57
Karen: rest of the chaps that play with me are a little bit older than me. So obviously they have problems because of their age generally, I think. So it's probably a bit different for them than it is for me because I'm still relatively fit and I do a lot of exercise generally anyway. Before I was diagnosed I used to do a hell of a lot of exercise. Obviously now, after being diagnosed, I don't have as much energy as I used to. So that has an impact on how much exercise I do, but I do try and sort
22:57 - 23:24
Karen: of do something at least 3 times a week just to keep myself going. And it's all to do with releases natural endorphin and dopamine into your brain, which is what we lack when we have Parkinson's. And it's it replaces that on its own. So it's, it's a win win as far as I'm concerned, really. Yes, it makes you feel good because obviously, you know, the dopamine's been released and you sort of on a buzz basically when you when you finish.
23:25 - 23:25
Speaker 2: So
23:25 - 24:00
Sutton Podcast: yeah, we've already mentioned that the emotional side as well, the connecting with other people. So it kind of ticks all the boxes. But Chris there is a little pain point of people will see the tweet or hear this they'll be like I don't know if it's for me, I don't know, I don't want to go into a group of people who know each other. I mean, what would you say for people to kind of say, encourage them to get involved? Got New Year's coming up, nice New Year's resolutions. What would you say to someone who's worried
24:00 - 24:04
Sutton Podcast: about their fitness abilities or just nervous for coming along on the first time?
24:05 - 24:42
Chris: Yeah I think I can stand here and say we're really welcoming, please come along and give us a try but I think I stress there's a couple of sources of training that I've gone through to be able to do what I do as part of the grant that we received from Parkinson's UK to start this session up. There was a training module that I needed to go through to make sure that the sessions that I'm planning are appropriate. As you know, Karen was talking about some of the balance examples, they were stressing the need to include
24:43 - 25:14
Chris: some cognitive challenges within what we do. And I was actually really surprised. I have had very little personal experience at Parkinson's, but I was very surprised to find out that as the coach, I should be trying to get people really puffed out by the end of the session. I was sort of thinking, you've got to be very gentle and you know very very kind and not push the players but actually you know we've got to find the right balance and essentially for me it's about allowing players to push themselves as much as they want to. I'm
25:14 - 25:50
Chris: not going to stand there and say you're not running around enough but if people are wanting to enable to push themselves a little bit harder then you know I'm going to support that rather than try and sort of worry too much about about holding them back but there's also another event that I went to that was organised by the EFL, it's called Inspiring People with Long-Term Health Conditions and we had input from a number of different charities, there were cancer charities, Alzheimer's, mental health and you know hearing from each of those groups about the sorts of
25:50 - 26:23
Chris: things that you need to build into sessions but also hearing from them around some of the barriers to people coming along as you mentioned it it's oh I'm not fit enough I I'm not good enough I haven't got the right kits you know I won't look right. Please don't let that stop you. Don't let that stop you. As Karen said, we've been doing this for 3 months now. We've had 2 people that have come along for 1 session and have decided it's not for them, that's absolutely fine. I get it's not gonna be for everyone, but
26:23 - 26:57
Chris: there's a lot of people who come back week after week after week. And as Karen says, she had a holiday, so she missed 1 week, but Karen's there every single week. And I just encourage people to just give it a go. No one's there to judge you, no one's there to worry about what you're wearing, how well you play. You know we've got a wide age range as Karen mentioned she's the right side of 50 but we go all the way through to 87 is our our oldest player right now we've got a good mix of
26:58 - 27:09
Chris: men and women so you know it's not that it's a load of blokes and just Karen or anything of that sort. It's a very hopefully welcoming, inclusive, diverse group.
27:11 - 27:19
Sutton Podcast: Karen, you get the last chance to have a little chat. What would you say to people? Because I mean, you, you, you braved it out, you sent that first email.
27:19 - 27:19
Karen: Yeah. What would you say
27:19 - 27:21
Sutton Podcast: to people who are kind of like, oh, I'm not sure.
27:21 - 27:58
Karen: I would just say, just do it. Just be brave. Don't worry about what's going through your head. They are very welcoming. Harry, Bobby and Chris are the best basically. And the ladies and gentlemen that are already there, they will include you. And before you know it, by the end of the first session, you'll be hugging, you'll be laughing and joking. It's just, it's so friendly. No, there's no bad feeling. You get a bit of banter, which is always quite good when you play football. I would say just do it, it's not going to hurt you, you
27:58 - 28:10
Karen: can try it once if you don't like it, you don't have to come back. It's just, you know, if you like football, you want to do a bit of exercise, you want a friendly environment, then yeah, just go for it.
28:10 - 28:41
Sutton Podcast: Perfect. We'll give you a rest for a bit now because we're going to talk about some of the other stuff which you may have opinions on, but you might not know an awful lot yet. So Chris, 1 of the other things we want to talk about was the partnerships with local charities. There was the Proper Blokes Club, which I've had on. There's Man v. Fat, which I take great objection to their targeted adverts, I've got to be honest with you, and the Paul Allen Foundation with Claire, which we all kind of know about because we do
28:41 - 28:50
Sutton Podcast: keep banging the drum about that 1. Tell us a bit about how we're working with these partnerships and what does it kind of mean for Sutton United as a Frugative Foundation?
28:51 - 29:35
Chris: Yeah, I think, you know, we look at a number of organizations that we have links with, but those are 3 that I just picked out because I think they've got a particular, or particularly strong overlap with the club you think about. You know, the football and health activities, obviously, that run through all 3. We make our facilities available to those groups. Some coaching support as well going into the Man v Fat 11 aside team. So it's really just trying to see where there are those natural overlaps that make the foundation and each of those groups, you
29:35 - 30:18
Chris: know, very strong partners. But it's also about having the resources to actually build out those relationships. So it's not just that we are letting the 4, 000 projects run their free CPR and defibrillator training sessions in our facilities. But actually, what can we be doing from a publicity point of view? Who can we be introducing Claire and her charity to some of our network that might be useful to her. And by the same token, a lot of what she's doing, there'll be groups of people that she's seeing that won't necessarily naturally be interested in Southern United,
30:18 - 30:49
Chris: but if they come into the ground and see the facilities and maybe that just sparks their interest, or maybe they'll come to a game this weekend. So it's just getting that link between our community activities and commercial activities so that we're getting benefit within the foundation by the charity publicizing us, but at the same time, we can be publicizing across the fan base and the wider community the great work of these 3 organizations and hopefully, you know, a number more in the future.
30:50 - 31:07
Sutton Podcast: Yes, so I mean, is this, I know we've worked with them separately or we've allowed them to use facilities, nothing really sort of set in stone. Is this a recent thing? Is there going to be sort of any points to success to go, that's what we're after? Or is it a bit too early for that yet?
31:11 - 31:56
Chris: Again, my knowledge is sort of last 3 to 6 months, also. So but I think the fact that, you know, the Pull Out Them Project and Claire are the club's charity partner of the year, there's a great opportunity on both sides there for us to make sure that we're really trying to maximize the benefit on both sides to that relationship. Claire has, and so I think it's now we have 4 defibrillators on site at the club. And that's, you know, it's just amazing that we get that support from her. Again, I've gone through Claire's free training
31:56 - 32:29
Chris: now. It's something like for every minute, and every minute sooner that you get access to a defibrillator for somebody suffering cardiac arrest increases their chances of survival by 10 percent. So you know just saying oh there's 1 at the club actually you might be at the wrong end of the club and it takes you 3 minutes rather than 1 minute to get that. So I think, you know, from the club's point of view, you know, having those defibrillators there is fantastic and whatever we can be doing to help publicize what Claire does so that she's continuing
32:29 - 32:51
Chris: to roll out across the borough. She's recently installed her 27th defibrillator in the borough. I'd like to think that some of that might be supported by what we do at the club. And if it's not, then we'll work very hard to make sure that we can help her hit that target of 30 that I know she's trying to get to very soon.
32:51 - 32:58
Sutton Podcast: It's not 30 when I had her on. I asked her what would the world be like if Claire got her way and she said there'd be 1 every 100 yards.
33:01 - 33:02
Chris: I'm thinking of a year-end target to
33:02 - 33:03
Karen: be honest.
33:07 - 33:18
Sutton Podcast: She came on the show and everyone said she was the best guest I had in ages because I asked 1 question and I didn't get another word in for 30 minutes because she just went off and I was like, this is amazing.
33:19 - 33:21
Chris: So passionate about what she does.
33:21 - 33:36
Sutton Podcast: Oh, God, amazing. I keep saying it. I've got to know her a little bit and it's like, oh, I'm just plugging a friend, but just amazing. Probably outside of St Helier Hospital, the safest place in the borough if you were to, God forbid, have a cardiac arrest.
33:36 - 33:36
Speaker 2: Because
33:36 - 34:06
Sutton Podcast: I think all the players, the coaching, academy players, loads of the fans are all trained. And as you said, there's 4 on site. So If you're going to do it, do it again in the Greenland, because we've got loads of people there. I did say that you could keep quiet for a bit, Karen, but you mentioned you like exercise. And I would hold there is some boxer size. Yes. Do you know about that yet, or am I just saying what
34:06 - 34:33
Karen: I am? No, I actually spoke to Chris last Wednesday because I had an appointment with my specialist nurse that I saw for the first time in almost a year on Tuesday. And she said that, you know, I was also trying to put on a boxercise class for people with Parkinson's because it's all to do with your coordination, it's very good for your coordination and I mentioned it to Chris and it said yes it was on the cards, I wasn't sure when it was going to be. But yeah, I would be definitely up for that. I love,
34:33 - 34:52
Karen: I love a bit of punching things. I do a body combat class at the moment, but it's just a normal class with normal people. It's not people with Parkinson's and people that I do the class with don't actually know that I have Parkinson's. So sometimes it comes, it's quite awkward when I can't always do everything at the same speed as they can,
34:52 - 34:53
Speaker 2: or
34:53 - 35:20
Karen: the same, you know, ferocity, but to do it in a class with this, of people with the same condition, it would mean that I wouldn't feel so sort of on my own and out of place. I mean they, people sort of try and include you but they don't actually know, I don't tell everyone that I have it and to look at me people don't think that I have it. So I don't, I'm not friendly enough with the people I do the class at at Westcroft so I wouldn't share that sort of information but yeah I'm definitely
35:20 - 35:27
Karen: up for having a boxer size class because it's just across the road for me so it'll take me 2 minutes to get there so it's even better.
35:27 - 35:36
Sutton Podcast: What I'm hearing is you've got experience, you're enthusiastic. Chris I think if you do it on a Wednesday, I think I might have found someone to help you run it.
35:37 - 36:11
Chris: Sounds good to me. We had a situation a couple of weeks ago. I introduced into our warm up just some gentle punching exercises. And the moment I mentioned punching, Karen sort of launched into this pose of, you know, sort of legs apart and, you know, I'm ready to throw some punches and I sort of flinched back because I thought she was, she got just sort of launched into 1. So clearly, yeah, has that boxing experience. So it's, yeah, good to know that we've got our first member as a member, we get that set up.
36:12 - 36:25
Sutton Podcast: Trainer, trainer, get to do it. So how far along is that? Is that a 6 months, a year, or are we still kind of just early stages?
36:25 - 36:41
Chris: No, we're hopeful that it's imminent. I hesitate to put a date on it, but I would be hopeful that early in 25 we'll be up and running with that 1.
36:42 - 37:02
Sutton Podcast: Excellent. There's another odd thing that I had and I think you're involved in it kind of does switch it up completely but it's the Energy meters, I suppose is a tedious link. You're trying to get more energy into into people so we'll go to the energy media No, it doesn't work. What was that energy meters?
37:06 - 37:50
Chris: It's not a great example of where again I'm coming from a financial career background. I just had, I didn't get the opportunities of a foundation of a football club and how they can support the local community. So there's a government initiative to promote awareness of smart meters both from a cost of living point of view, hopefully making savings on energy bills, but also environmental sustainability and everybody using less electricity and gas. And so through the EFL, there is an initiative that we're handing out just to promote smart meters across the fan base. And so whether it's
37:50 - 38:26
Chris: through the walking football sessions, Parkinson's football, coffee mornings that we have, there's a silver lunch, Christmas lunch tomorrow afternoon for all the members of the community. On that point, it's just about making sure that we are using the audiences that we build up across the foundation just to help promote some of the key messages and initiatives that are coming out of whether it's the EFL or the National League and again hopefully bringing some things that might be of interest and support to the club's fan base and local community.
38:27 - 38:55
Sutton Podcast: Perfect. I mean it's overwhelming and especially as a lot of people who won't be getting these smart meters, maybe slightly older, a bit wary of having things spying on you in the home, how are we kind of making it simplified, a simplified message? I'm not saying people are simple, but just that it's confusing when you've got all these things. How are we working on saying, well, this is all it does, this is just helping you?
38:55 - 39:35
Chris: Yeah, so I mean, there's publicity materials that we've been provided from the EFL, and they try to be very concise and punchy in terms of just what the benefits are and then providing links to more information for people that want to investigate and go a little bit further. So again, we can be there answering questions just to try to reassure. Ultimately, we're not technical experts in smart meters. We're the communication channel. But very happy to support this initiative through the EFL.
39:36 - 40:03
Sutton Podcast: Lovely. Well, I know I've banged on a little bit about how do people get involved? How do people do it? I mean, as I said, it's, we're mid-December now, people are starting to write up their little lists and 1 of those things is to get a bit more exercise and get involved. Yeah. How can people reach out? Give us the absolute, this is what you need to do and this is how you get involved.
40:04 - 40:48
Chris: Gotcha. So let's start with the walking football and the Parkinson's football. So Wednesday mornings, goals at North Cheam, walking football starts at 10 o'clock, Parkinson's football starts at 11.30, Both run for an hour and a half. First session is free. Second session and thereafter will cost you £5. If you happen to go to both the Walken Football and the Parkinson's, it's 1 charge. You don't get charged for both. Any questions on anything that we've been talking about today or anything more broadly with the Foundation, the email address is foundation at soutonyunited.net. We also have a foundation
40:49 - 40:55
Chris: link on the homepage of the club website where you can find out more about us there as well.
40:57 - 41:23
Sutton Podcast: And I think I can't remember off the top of my head but I'll put the link to the social media as well. I think it's just something like the foundation. It might be something really complicated like that. But what have you got? I know we've touched on boxercise, I'm sure from just hearing your voice, there's these plans firing off in different directions. Is there any of those kind of things you're looking forward to for 2025 other than getting more people signed up?
41:23 - 42:09
Chris: I think, yeah, as I say, that it's really important to me that we develop certainly those 3 charitable partnerships that I was talking about and start to also reach out to a few more organisations. As part of that we are looking to bring an additional health and exercise coach into the foundation. So again, any listeners interested themselves or know of somebody who would be interested in that, it would be a part-time paid role. So yeah, very keen to hear from people who may be interested in that. And again, that then allows us to do more at
42:09 - 42:20
Chris: the moment. It's still a relatively small team. And I think it's important that we try to fill out the team, because that will really allow us to start doing a lot more across the organisation.
42:23 - 42:32
Sutton Podcast: I kid you not, the next thing I have is are you looking for volunteers or people to join your team? Not having this!
42:32 - 43:08
Chris: And the volunteer 1 is a great point as well, Mike, because it's not just about coming down and having the commitment of a permanent role as such. Again, my work with the Foundation is on a voluntary basis, as I say, just just fitting in with the career break that I'm taking. I have to say that the longer I work with the Foundation, the more I don't want to end the career break and that, you know, that you say, I'm not, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon in terms of certainly the Parkinson's football group and some of
43:08 - 43:34
Chris: the other activities. I want to make sure that I continue to be involved in those for some time to come. But this is it, you know, we're always looking for other people to come along and get involved and if it's that you've got a couple of hours a week to take something on or just you know every now and then you know you've got a half day and you can come out and get involved then you know really keen to hear from you through that foundation, that's siteunited.net email.
43:35 - 44:01
Sutton Podcast: Perfect. So we kind of skimmed over those charities. So the man versus fat is a sort of weekly, I know this because of the adverts by the way, the weekly sort of check-in, you play football, I think you weigh yourself beforehand and there's kind of a little bit of accountability in the idea is you're losing weight. So is that right? Is that how it works?
44:01 - 44:41
Chris: Yes, I mean, it's a great group. I mean, there's leagues all over the country. So I've been along to the southern group. They've been going for almost 10 years now. I believe collectively they've lost over 1 and a half tons, which is amazing in that time, just under 100 players within that league and that's it. They're all obviously in their teams, they had the weigh-in and the collective weigh-in will give your team a number of goals head start in the game. So it's not just about playing football and losing weight. If you're the 1 player in
44:41 - 45:16
Chris: your team who has put on weight in the last week, your team don't get a goal bonus. So you're really incentivized to make sure you're losing weight in the week and then actually the person that loses the most weight gets a goal for their team or whatever it might be. But yeah, there's lots of incentives and it just works really well and it was really great just to be sat in the weighing room as this stream of players comes in and just seeing the bands that goes on obviously everyone supporting their own teammates and not so
45:16 - 45:47
Chris: happy if someone else's team has had a particularly strong week with the weight loss. So it's a very well structured team. Again, they don't need anything from Southern United to run that on a weekly basis. Where I'm looking to help out is to provide some coaching support for the 11 aside team, which hopefully all then sort of feeds back into their Friday night sessions as well. But yeah, really good organisation.
45:50 - 46:20
Sutton Podcast: And the walking blokes club, again, that's a, it's a strange 1 because obviously we're men we don't have feelings and all the rest of it but we do and I believe the way he's explained is you're encouraged to walk and talk but you're not expected so go along there's 1 at Sutton I think there's 1 in Wallington as well off the top of my head and it literally is group guys just walk around and you can have a one-to-one chat, a little group chat, and it can help.
46:20 - 46:56
Chris: That's it, yeah. I think they're in most London boroughs, if not all London boroughs right now. I mean, amazing what Scott's done with that over the last couple of years, but you're right, LA, Pretty sure it's a Thursday evening at 07:00 outside. The club on Gander Green Lane meets at 7, walk for an hour, finish back at the club. And this is it. So every week there will be a mixture of regulars and new joiners. And as you say, depending on the number of people there, you might split into a couple of one-to-one chats or a
46:56 - 47:29
Chris: couple of larger groups. If you don't feel like talking, then you can just join the walk and listen. And I know that's obviously quite common with new joiners, just sort of go along for a couple of times and get a feel for things. But yeah, start to make those friendships and then get that support network and hear from other people what works for them. And again, it's something that's really opened my eyes when I joined those guys for Walkers to just how effective that can be.
47:29 - 47:46
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, we touched on that earlier with Karen. It's the silly thoughts that come into your mind and the questions and you think, oh, I can't ask anyone that and suddenly you've got someone who's been quite open and talking you up. Oh, hang on. I'm not the only 1 that's going through that or thinking that as well. So yeah, they're really useful.
47:46 - 48:15
Chris: Yeah. And I think just from my own point of view, you know, there's things that I was discussing on that walk that I haven't told my best mates. But because you know, everyone on that walk is, you know, no one's judging you. Yeah. You can just say whatever you want to say, it's a real safe space. And so from that point of view, it was just really powerful to be part of that walk and to see what it meant to the people there.
48:16 - 48:40
Sutton Podcast: And from my personal point of view, sometimes you say something out loud and you just realise, why has that been rattling around my head for the last 3 weeks? I should just literally have let that go and then it's gone and done. But I'm going to wrap up in a second, but is there anything else you guys would like to plug or highlight? I know we've covered quite a bit, but I just want to make sure we haven't missed anything out. Karen, was there anything else you wanted to mention?
48:41 - 49:02
Karen: No, just basically if anyone is interested in football and as Parkinson's or like Chris says any other problems that they can't play regular football, come down, give it a go and see how it goes. They might even love it, you know, that you, you know, give it, give it a go, play, live every life like it's your last basically and enjoy it really. That's my motto.
49:03 - 49:12
Sutton Podcast: Walk with the ball near Karen. No. And Chris, anything I've missed for you or you wanted to highlight?
49:13 - 49:44
Chris: Nothing that's missed. I think I'll just go back to something that Karen said quite early on, I think about how she's really encouraged it to come down every week. Just for me, a thank you to all of the players who have come down to help support the Parkinson's football group as we've tried to get that off the ground because I know it can't be easy, you know, coming down each week. There'll be some weeks that you just, you know, you think, I'm not sure I'm up for it this week, but you know, it's great to see
49:45 - 50:12
Chris: the regulars coming along and as I say, just a massive thank you to Karen on behalf of the rest of the players because clearly we're doing this for those guys, but you know, recognize it's not always easy to to come along every week but people are there they're smiling they're joining in and hopefully continue to do so as we go into next year.
50:13 - 50:41
Sutton Podcast: Perfect well Thank you both so much for everything you're sharing. I hope it spotlights some things and we get some listeners. As you said, Chris, maybe not them, maybe their neighbours, friends, someone just sort of say, oh, I've heard of something and then just point people in the right direction and the guys at the Foundation can do the rest. But we are going to wrap up this episode of Sutton Podcast. As always, we appreciate the ear tension and feedback. There's a young guy who normally rolls his eyes at that point when I say ear tension. So
50:41 - 51:11
Sutton Podcast: feel free if you want to roll your eyes, I don't mind. Follow, like, share this episode at Sutton Podcast on all your social medias. As I say, give us the little tags and thumbs up. Subscribe on your preferred platforms and give me the thumbs up on YouTube. We're back on Sunday where we should have Andy and George and possibly Neil to talk about the game. Neil, I'm sure will tell us all about his car troubles. That's why it's a possibility. As always thank you to LuckystarGNR sponsors, thank you to both of you again, Chris and Karen,
51:11 - 51:12
Sutton Podcast: you've been amazing
51:13 - 51:13
Speaker 2: and
51:13 - 51:15
Sutton Podcast: thanks to the listeners. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of
51:15 - 51:18
Speaker 2: Something this episode of something podcast take care and we'll catch up soon bye bye
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