Fans Supporting Foodbanks is a joint initiative between rival

Liverpool F.C. Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has ...

and

Everton F.C. Everton Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club was a founder member of the Football League in 1888 and has comp ...

supporters, founded in 2015 to tackle

food poverty Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

. It provides a quarter of all food donations to north Liverpool

food bank A food bank is a non-profit, charitable organization that distributes food to those who have difficulty purchasing enough to avoid hunger, usually through intermediaries like food pantries and soup kitchens. Some food banks distribute food dire ...

s and has helped to develop a network of fan-driven food banks across the UK. It is an example of progressive football fan activism.

History

Fans Supporting Foodbanks is a partnership between Everton Supporters' Trust and

Spirit of Shankly Spirit Of Shankly (SOS) is the official supporters' union and leader of the supporters board for fans of Liverpool F.C. Named after former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, the union was formed in early 2008 by disgruntled fans opposed to the for ...

supporters' union. It was founded in 2015 by Liverpool fan

Ian Byrne Ian Robert Byrne (born 1972) 10 May 1972 comes up in searches is a British Labour Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool West Derby since the 2019 general election. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign ...

and Everton fans Dave Kelly and Robbie Daniels in response to rising food poverty linked to the programme of

austerity Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spendi ...

implemented by the UK government from 2010. Taking inspiration from

Celtic F.C. The Celtic Football Club, commonly known as Celtic (), is a Scottish professional football club based in Glasgow, which plays in the Scottish Premiership. The club was founded in 1887 with the purpose of alleviating poverty in the immigra ...

fan group The Green Brigade, Fans Supporting Foodbanks started collecting food donations in wheelie-bins outside pubs on matchdays. Both

and Everton football clubs have shown strong support for the initiative. As well as holding collections at home games, Fans Supporting Foodbanks bring food to donate to rival fans' foodbanks during away fixtures, as a show of solidarity. The group's motto is: "Hunger doesn't wear club colours." In 2018, Liverpool F.C. chief executive,

Peter Moore Peter or Pete Moore may refer to: Politicians *Peter Moore (British politician) (1753–1828), English civil servant of the East India Company and politician *Peter Moore (Queensland politician) (born 1938), member of the Queensland Legislative As ...

, donated a vehicle through his foundation. Fans Supporting Foodbanks’ purple van (a mix of the two clubs' colours) is used to transport food donations from across the city and can be found outside Anfield and Goodison on matchdays. In August, Liverpool podcast and fanzine ''

The Anfield Wrap ''The Anfield Wrap'' (TAW Player) is a collective of podcasts, radio shows, videocasts, live shows, magazine and website articles predominantly about Liverpool F.C. as well as the culture and music in the city of Liverpool. Content Described ...

'' commissioned a mural of Liverpool F.C.'s

Trent Alexander-Arnold Trent John Alexander-Arnold (born 7 October 1998) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Liverpool and the England national team. Known for his range of passing, crossing and assists, he is regarded as one o ...

, created by French graffiti artist Akse, dedicated to Fans Supporting Foodbanks. The mural can be found on Sybil Road near Anfield Stadium. Ahead of the 2019 general election, Fans Supporting Foodbanks co-founder Ian Byrne was selected as the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

's candidate for

Liverpool West Derby Liverpool, West Derby is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Ian Byrne of the Labour Party. Boundaries 1885–1918: The Municipal Borough of Liverpool ward of West Derby. 1918–1950: The ...

. On 12 December 2019, Byrne was elected with 77.6% of the vote. In November 2020, Fans Supporting Foodbanks launched a mobile community food pantry.

Work

Countering the far-right

Fans Supporting Foodbanks consider their work as a response to football fan groups with links to the

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of bein ...

, such as the

Football Lads Alliance The Football Lads Alliance (FLA) was a right-wing movement in the United Kingdom founded by John Meighan in 2017. According to '' The Times'', "the movement was set up as a self-proclaimed 'anti-extremist' movement" but had increasingly become ...

. The group partners with religious and ethnic minority groups to organise joint collections and events with the aim of breaking down barriers between communities. In 2018, Fans Supporting Foodbanks invited football fans to screenings of

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

games at the Abdullah Quilliam Mosque. Journalist

Ash Sarkar Ashna Sarkar (born 1992) is a British journalist and libertarian communist political activist. She is a senior editor at Novara Media and teaches at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Sarkar is a contributor to ''The Guardian'' and ''The In ...

wrote in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'':

"This endeavour shows that football doesn't have to be the domain of racists and Islamophobes, and that mosques aren't some culturally alien and terrifying enclave. By addressing the immediate economic conditions of the neighbourhoods around them, anti-racist activists can bring together seemingly opposed communities and close down the gaps where the far right are able to organise."

COVID-19 response

During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, Fans Supporting Foodbanks set up a new food distribution hub and co-ordinated efforts to produce personal protective equipment for frontline NHS and care workers. When football matches were being played behind closed doors and the Premier League charged £14.95 to watch some matches on television, Fans Supporting Foodbanks encouraged supporters to boycott pay-per-view matches and donate the amount to foodbanks instead, raising over £100,000. Pay-per-view was scrapped soon after.

Right to Food

In December 2020, Ian Byrne and Fans Supporting Foodbanks launched a campaign for the

Right to Food The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individu ...

to be written into UK law. In January 2021, Liverpool City Council unanimously voted to support the Right to Food being enshrined in law, making it the UK's first 'Right to Food' city.

Awards

* In 2018, Fans Supporting Foodbanks were awarded the Bill Shankly Community Award in the

Liverpool Player of the Season Awards The Liverpool Player of the Season Award, is one of a set of official end of season awards given to the best performing player over the course of the Premier League Season as voted for by the fans. The inaugural award was handed out in 2001, with ...

. * In November 2018, Fans Supporting Foodbanks were awarded the Alan Ball "Ball of Fire" Award. * In January 2020, Fans Supporting Foodbanks were named as one of

The Big Issue ''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individ ...

's Top 100 Changemakers for 2020.

References

External links

* *{{Facebook , FansSupportingFooddbanks , Fans Supporting Foodbanks Liverpool F.C. Everton F.C. Food banks Food politics Poverty in the United Kingdom Politics and sports