Chelsea Foundation embraces Black History Month with Iconic Shirts event

Chelsea Foundation embraces Black History Month with Iconic Shirts event

Chelsea Foundation hosted its Iconic Shirts: What We Wore event to conclude an engaging, educational and impactful series of projects throughout October to celebrate Black History Month.

During October, the Foundation delivered over 110 activations, including school workshops, assemblies, community group youth voice sessions and activity toolkits.

Engaging over 5600 participants, the focus was on celebrating the achievements and success of black players from both the men’s and women’s teams past and present, as well as highlighting the contribution of black people within sports, education, careers and across communities, while raising awareness on the obstacles and barriers people of black origin have faced to through discrimination. 

The project centred on working with young people and adult participants within the Foundation, and staff from across the football club being challenged to create their own Iconic Shirt which celebrated Black History Month. Football shirts represent identity and unity across a team, where everyone has a sense of belonging, which champions one of the foundation’s core values of ‘Many Teams, One Club’. Twenty-four winning designers were then invited to Stamford Bridge to showcase their designs and creations.

Participants were educated and inspired at Stamford Bridge

On Monday 31 October, the Foundation hosted two events at Stamford Bridge, located in the Canoville Suite, an appropriate tribute to Chelsea’s first ever black first-team footballer. 

Ninety-five participants from a variety of Foundation programmes attended, including Sir John Lillie Primary School, St Polycarp’s Primary School, Uxbridge College, Chelsea Academy, Regent Park Walking Football and members of staff across the business. A carousel of workshops were delivered which focused on culture, identity, allyship, and iconic black players, allowing participants to explore and share conversations and most importantly continue to celebrate Black History Month.

“This has been an inspirational event. Giving young people the opportunity to celebrate identity is important to ensuring we are installing positive values across different communities.”

Karen Trafford, deputy head at St Polycarp’s

“I have learnt about different black players of Chelsea from all around the world and how they bring their skills and experiences together to be part of a team. I’ve had loads of fun and I am going to continue to celebrate black history!”

Daejon, pupil at Sir John Lillie’s

There were some unique and creative shirt designs on display

The second event of the day focused on the Iconic Shirt designs when the 24 selected participants were invited to attend with their parents, guardians and teachers. Once again, members of staff from the business attended to support the project and to get involved with the activities. Participants received educational Black History Month-themed workshops before pitching their shirt designs to the judges.

Participants were joined in the afternoon by a special guest, Chelsea Women’s defender Kadeisha Buchanan. She gave up her time to meet all of the guests, hold a Q&A session, as well as being an esteemed judge alongside Simon Taylor, Richard Milham and Capo Lee. The judges then went on to select three winning designs: Yasmine (Fulham Cross Academy Secondary School), Amrece (Kings Court First Primary School) and Chris Dagger (Regents Park Walking Football).

The judging panel including Chelsea Women’s defender, Kadeisha Buchanan

“It was a great session. Encouraging conversations across the workforce is important to create a safe and positive working environment and provides the opportunity for collaboration across different departments.”

Adam Burrage, stadium tours and museum manager

“I enjoyed it, the feedback I received from my design was excellent, this was well out of my comfort zone and this made me feel amazing! The work that the Foundation does makes a difference.”

Paul Bennett, Regents Park Walking Football participant