London Sport Awards: Hall of Fame

Each year we celebrate everything great about grassroots physical activity and sport at the London Sport Awards.

Our Hall of Fame highlights previous London Sport Awards winners who have helped to make London a healthier and happier place.

Our 2021 winners were:

Nahimul Islam

Volunteer of the Year 2021

Nahimul helps the needs of the community: food, activity and education – all whilst working full time and studying for a masters degree. Nahimul took it upon himself to deliver over 600 nutritious meals to vulnerable people. He and and his team of volunteers provided over 200 hours of virtual activities. Including a yoga course, with yoga equipment delivered to doorsteps. 500 young people from 20 ethnic groups took part in his free summer sports programme, where over 6,000 meals were distributed. In spring he allocated 25 tablets, 20 laptops and 20 raspberry-pi devices to those who needed them the most.

Finalists: Warren King & Adaeze Iheanacho

Carney's Community

The Community Impact Award 2021

Carney’s Community is a charity targeting disadvantaged groups, using a combination of boxing and long term, consistent, unconditional support. Activities include free boxing fitness, training for disadvantaged people to become coaches or PTs, the Fit & Fed programme, cooking classes, youth clubs, bike maintenance, motivational discussions, and even a goodwill based “Key Work” scheme providing unconditional help to those most in need. Many activities were adapted during the pandemic, including virtual boxing classes, delivering ingredients for online cooking, or delivering 5,000 meals.

Finalists: Social Organisation for Unity and Leisure and Core Arts

Charlie Hyman

Inspirational Young Person of the Year 2021

At 22, Charlie had the ambition to develop a football club where all children could have access to high-quality services – despite their ability to pay or play. Bloomsbury Football offers children’s first football experience and engagement activities for children willing to commit to a team setting. Charlie created a bursary schemes to allow those of low-income families to participate. In 2020, 52% of all beneficiaries were supported by the scheme. In only three years of existence, Bloomsbury Football raised over £800k. Bloomsbury Football has provided over 2,000 hours of football in Camden, Westminster and Islington, promoted mental health initiatives for girls and disability football. Charlie’s initiative has supported children like Joao, 13, who moved to London from Lisbon after tragically losing his parents. Joao wouldn’t experience youth football if it wasn’t for the bursary.

Finalists: Kieran Matthews, Elvire Mavusi Matu

Tideway

The Business Contribution Award 2021

Tideway partners with London Youth Rowing (LYR) on projects such as Active Row, encouraging children in 70 schools across 12 priority boroughs – based on the London Poverty Profile – to be regularly active through indoor and on-water rowing. During the pandemic, Tideway brought forward scheduled payments and de-restricted funds for LYR so they could be used to meet core costs, and supported LYR with professional skills. Programme Manager Andrew Triggs-Hodge, a former Olympic rower, was seconded to act as event director on a fundraising event, helping to attract 180 teams and 1,500 participants. The event raised £120,000, including £70,000 for LYR.

Finalists: Decathlon UK

Rathbone Amateur Boxing Club

The Uniting London Award 2021

Rathbone Amateur Boxing Club’s outreach arm has reached many groups within London’s local communities since the onset of the pandemic both virtually and in person. The ‘Proud to #FightTogether’ programme provides LGBTQ+ friendly sessions that actively target members of the community and address concerns to make them feel welcome in the sport. In addition, the club delivers a number of education and employment programmes under their ‘Podium Potential’ banner, including support for those with fewer opportunities, including mentoring, CV and interview workshops, industry one-to-ones and training and equipment.

Finalists: London and SE Netball Association/Met Police and MovementWorks

Open Age

The Health and Wellbeing Award 2021

Over the pandemic, Open Age provided 40 weekly Zoom sessions; 42 videos on YouTube; and four weekly group-based telephone sessions – and now run 16 weekly in-person physical activities. In addition to its general physical activity provision, including boxing, ballet, zumba, yoga and chair exercise, Open Age has continued to offer its three clinical exercise programmes remotely: Healthy Lungs for those with long-term breathing conditions; Osteo Blast for those with Osteoporosis/Osteopenia; and Steady and Stable for those at risk of falls. Nearly 900 participants have engaged since May 2020, benefitting from improved physical, mental and social health.

Finalists: Harlequins Foundation and Social Action for Health

London Pulse Netball Club

The Elite Sport in the Community Award 2021

Aiming to empower women and girls, London Pulse’s community work includes community camps, a multi-sport programme which develops young athletes, an “Educate, Train & Inspire” programme to provide over 400 young Pulse pathway athletes with skills outside of sport and the Metro Blind Sport Partnership – the first specific provision of netball for VI athletes in the world. The club also ran Metropolitan Police Day, a netball experience day with youth engagement officers of the Met because there are far fewer sport diversion opportunities for young women from disadvantaged backgrounds. This was a great way to provide positive female role models.

Finalists: Charlton Athletic Community Trust and Saracens Foundation

Charlton Athletic Community Trust

The Young Londoners Award 2021

Young people’s activity dropped significantly after school closures and in the wake of grassroots sport being suspended. With government guidelines strictly followed, CACT delivered football/sports activities on their 3G community pitch to 4,421 participants (aged 4-15). For clinically vulnerable young children, CACT offered free two-hour sole use slots on their covid-safe 3G community pitch, with sanitised sporting equipment provided. To tackle a lack of physical and social activity, food poverty, and missed education time, CACT also delivered a free Summer Activity Programme to 570 disadvantaged children, providing physical activity, nutritious food, active learning, and creative arts.

Finalists: Power Mobile Gym and London Youth Games

Street Tag

The Tech and Digital Award 2021

Street Tag is a mobile application that motivates less active or sedentary families to become more active by incentivising them to engage in physical activities. The app leverages virtual reality, and virtual tags are placed in popular walking/cycling/running routes, libraries, historical landmarks, and green spaces to encourage participation and physical activities. There are 25,000 active family accounts; 8.9 million tags collected; over 3,654,495 active miles walked, run, or cycled; and 2 billion steps since April 2020. About 60% of active users are children from 300 participating schools across London and around the UK.

Finalists: Merton Mencap and Bexley Mencap

Tigers Junior Football Club

The Enhancing the Workforce Award 2021

The Tigers JFC Futures programme was launched to get players into the coaching and refereeing side of grassroots football, and has developed and trained more than 20 young people to be qualified referees. A former participant, Leigh Gell, has recently been appointed Women’s Football Recreation Officer at Manchester FA. A student of sports psychology at Loughborough, she brought a new dynamic to the way of coaching at the Wildcats centre and became a fond favourite with all the young budding female footballers. Young volunteers are provided with a proper training kit, and full referees kit and accessories once passing their referees exam.