Inter Estates Tournament


Waltham Forest Under 18s 8-a-side soccer championship

Thursday 21st February 2002

Drapers Field Astro Turf, Leyton High Road, Leyton, E10

Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme has been running a diverse and comprehensive community sports offer for the past 13 years. In that time the organisation has grown from employing from one officer to 15 full time officers and now operates throughout Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Barking & Dagenham. The programme itself offers a diverse range of activities for young people who have traditionally been excluded from mainstream sports and community opportunities. The programme therefore focuses its work on 12 housing estates and their immediate communities including schools, youth clubs and other partners involved in regenerating and improving these areas. The programme is also aimed at those who are at risk of offending and have a history of substance abuse. The Programme not only offers football opportunities but also employs two full time teachers who run a comprehensive education programme and a sports development team who offer basketball, netball and tennis opportunities.

The estates work forms the core of the Programmes activities with one of the key features being the development of teams to represent the estate in local, regional and national competition. Several estates now have teams that are regularly playing in local leagues, one of which has also made it to the London FAs intermediate league. For the past three summers Leyton Orient CSP have organised the inter estates summer league with 16 teams taking part. This league not only attracts the estates Leyton Orient works with but also estates from Newham and Redbridge.

As part of the preparations for the Inter estate summer league and as a launch pad for our new Positive Futures project funded by the Home Office and Sport England, we held an inter estates tournament on 21st February. This brought together the cream of the teams that are currently working with the Programme, with ten teams in total turning up representing various estates and community groups including the Gascoigne estate in Barking and Dagenham, the Pinnacle estate from Shoreditch in Hackney, a team from the Isle of Dogs, two teams from the Click Centre, a community project in South Leytonstone, two asylum seekers teams from Barking and Dagenham and Leyton as well as a team from the Beaumont estate in Leyton. Over 100 15-17 year olds took part in this hard fought tournament with all of the teams playing to a very high standard. In the end though there could be only one winner who were the Leyton All Stars. They will now go on to represent Leyton Orient CSP at the National 5 a side championships to be held on Hackney Marshes in the summer.