News & Events / News / Football festival to help cut crime on Nottingham’s Clifton estate

Football festival to help cut crime on Nottingham’s Clifton estate

A football festival to divert young people away from gangs and petty crime is to be held on Nottingham’s Clifton estate.

Pete Bell, founder of the Step Out, Stay Out football-based rehabilitation programme, has organised the Jumpers4Goalposts festival on 4 August at the Clifton Football Centre to support at-risk youngsters in the area and help build a stronger, safer community.

The event is part of ongoing work by Step Out, Stay Out to establish Clifton as a hub for diversionary sport-based activity and to support the resettlement of ex-prison residents in the community, in partnership with nearby HMP Lowdham Grange.

The Jumpers4Goalposts extravaganza has attracted the support of the local tram network, NET, who have promoted it on posters displayed at tram stops across the city.

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As well as football, the free event will also feature martial arts and other sports, as well as a variety of stands and stalls.

Representatives from the prison service, Nottinghamshire police, the Army and Nottingham City Council will also be showing their support during an afternoon of family fun.

A well-respected football coach, Pete’s own story demonstrates how football can help to transform lives. In the 1990s he found himself in trouble with the law and served a short prison sentence and, upon release, he trained to became a football coach.

His own experience inspired him to develop a project designed to give prison inmates a chance to develop coaching and mentoring skills, creating a motivational environment to help avoid the vicious circle of release and re-offending.

Pete’s work with local communities, particularly in the Clifton area where he is based, is also playing its part in helping to prevent young people from turning to crime before they find themselves in the criminal justice system.

Jumpers4Goalposts poster

NET’s Operations Manager, Trevor Stocker, said: “Pete is doing some fantastic work as part of a project that fits well with our own values, working in partnership to create stronger, safer communities.

“Now established as a Community Interest Company, Step Out, Stay Out is already transforming lives in Clifton, an area served by NET, and has the potential to be rolled out in other parts of the country. We’ll be supporting him all the way!”

Pete himself said: “We’re delighted to have NET on board as we look forward to the Jumpers4Goalposts event. It promises to be a day to remember and provide the ideal opportunity to showcase the important role sport can play in bringing communities together.”

The event at Clifton Football Centre gets underway at 11am and runs until 3pm on August 4, and further information about the event and Step Out, Stay Out can be found on the Step Out, Stay Out website.