On Tuesday 14th October Canary Wharf Group hosted its third Sports Personality and Group Awards held at Canary Wharf’s Cabot Hall. The awards were created as a formal recognition of the outstanding contribution to sport by young people and their leaders in Tower Hamlets and Thames Gateway.

A number of prominent figures from the area presented Awards including LBTH Mayor Cllr Sardar who presented the Individial Achievement Awards and Deputy Civic Ambassador LB Newham Cllr Holland who presented the Junior Team Awards. Representatives from Canary Wharf Group were also in attendance; Tony Partington, Managing Director of Canary Wharf Management Limited, presented the Group Achievement Awards with Robert John, Advisor to Canary Wharf Group, presenting the Sports Personality of the Year Award.

The achievements and dedication of these young people are all the more significant because the borough is historically associated with poverty and deprivation. As a company based in Tower Hamlets, Canary Wharf Group aims to highlight how sporting opportunities have helped young people to overcome these adversities and act as role models for others in the community.

A special recognition award was also presented to Tower Hamlets Schools Gymnastic & Dance Display Team for their outstanding community work. This was presented by Peter Wade, Community Relations Officer for Canary Wharf Group to Bob Bellew.

Winners: The Individual Achievement Awards were presented to seven individuals with weightlifter Halil Zorba winning the overall Sports Personality of the Year accolade.

Junior Team of the Year Award – Barking Ladies FC Under 16
Senior Team of the Year Award – Bethnal Green Sharks Swimming Club
Group Achievement Award – Poplar United Youth Development
Voluntary Commitment Awards – Colin Reeves, Pat Ansell, Mafijur Rab, Derek Spicer, George manners, Linda Hayes & Kelvin Richards.

Biographies:

Halil Zorba hails from the Bethnal Green Technology College. Putting new meaning into the cliché of the East End hard man for all the right reasons, Halil has brought the eyes of the weight lifting world down on Bethnal Green, as it becomes increasingly clear that this young man has a huge future in his field. Halil has won no fewer than five Schoolboy titles, not to mention being the 2001 and 2002 Greater London Champion and British Champion at under 16. Recently, he has become a member of the Great Britain Under 16 Schoolboy Squad.

Barking Ladies FC Under 16 would be the first to admit that their sporting year has been a turbulent one. Struggling at first with a sparse fixture list and then eventual collapse of the girls’ league, the squad was reinvigorated by several of them being selected to play at County level for Essex with many of them playing supporting roles in the older teams, despite the age differences. In spite of the lack of regular team football, the girls continued to train hard for a tour of Denmark they had set up for July 2003. A joint effort in fundraising by way of car-washing, karaoke nights and discos enabled tickets to be bought and the team flew out to Denmark for what turned out to be an incredibly successful tour. Playing regularly in a 90 degree heat, the girls had a series of large goal wins, eventually winning the final tournament to bring back a rack of gold medals to Barking. This team has shown a resilience, determination and, most of all, a commitment to their sport which deserves congratulations.

Bethnal Green Sharks Swimming Club The senior squad members have had an excellent year’s swimming, especially in the Disabled category, where its achievements have been of a world class standard. At the National Short Course Championships – Disability, a Sharks team swimmer not only set a new European record for the 100 metre Butterfly but the 100 metre Medley team, set a new World Record. At the World Disability Championships 2002 in Argentina Sharks swimmers represented their country and achieved results such as a new World Record as part of the 4 x 100 metre Freestyle Relay Team, as well as two Gold, one Silver and two Bronze medals win by just two competitors! Topping off an extremely successful season was the 2003 Midland Open Masters Championships, where two club swimmers won one Gold and three Silver medals between them.

Poplar United Youth Development Only established a year and a half ago, Poplar United has blossomed quickly and resourcefully in the local area, growing from its conception when it had only one football to train with, to an organisation with over 100 children as eager members. The club is entirely run by volunteers, many of whom have expert footballing backgrounds and who are progressing towards coaching qualifications for the club’s benefit. The commitment of these volunteers cannot be underestimated, providing not only their valuable time in order to keep up the three training sessions a week but also to provide many children who would not normally have the chance to be coached so regularly the opportunity to enjoy their experience. The club has already staged a
successful tournament this year and its successful under 16 side is following its club’s motto to the letter: ‘we hope to break barriers and raise the standard of the whole community’.

Colin Reeves has been a leading light in the local community for more than 20 years. His inspirational teaching at Stepney Green began two decades ago and since then he has led thousands of children through not only their GCSE education but also into the wonders of the Beautiful Game. Colin was a founding member of Beaumont Athletic FC, whom he has led into the London Intermediate Football League. In the early days, Colin was not only the coach but was also the treasurer, the chief organiser and, more often than not, the driver to all the away matches! He gave up his spare time for the club as well as funding the club’s many expenses. Since then, he has continued to be a one man footballing machine; in 1998 he helped form the Stepney Green School ‘Stars of Stepney’ team and in 2000 he aided the development of the Newark Under 16s; and both of these teams played fiercely in the Newham Youth League. As well as running teams, Colin has played a vital role in the maintenance of the Leagues themselves, helping to run the League Bangla and establishing the ILAFL, not to mention the newly formed East London Summer League. Colin Reeves has been an inspirational figure to many children in the local area and his work is still ongoing so his influence will touch many more thousand of kids to come.

Pat Ansell has worked tirelessly for the swimmers of the Bethnal Green Sharks Swimming Club for 30 years now. Pat’s voluntary work for the Sharks is a prime example of true dedication. Her efforts have, for the past 20 years, been centred on being the club’s Treasurer, where she has worked enthusiastically above and beyond the call of duty, organising the club’s many social activities including the annual sporting holiday to the Isle of Wight for club members. It is because of the goodwill of people like Pat that clubs like The Sharks are the swimming force they are renowned as – producing Gold Medallist swimmers of national and international standards across all categories of physical abilities that provide the local community with a beacon of sporting excellence. Pat reached retirement age last year but she continues to work regularly for the club.

Mafijur Rab has a mission and that is to establish Tower Hamlets as a centre for cricketing excellence. Due to Mafijur’s continued diligence, that dream is steadily becoming a possible reality. When the Bangladeshi National Team was granted Test Status by the ICC, Mafijur noticed how local British Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets became more interested in taking up the sport and so he seized the initiative and helped to set up the now successful Vallance Cricket Club. Under Mafijur’s guidance, Vallance adopted a cricket constitution, which enabled them to become members of English & Middlesex Cricket Boards and the club now has 65 members, with four teams (two senior, two junior) and a Girl’s Team on the horizon. Outside of his activities with Vallance, Mafijur organises summer practice sessions and tournaments at Boundary School, Victoria Park Cricket Ground and Stepney Nets. He is currently campaigning for a full grass pitch to be established in Tower Hamlets and has been visiting Lords to advise on local cricket development.

Derek Spicer is another local footballing legend whose coaching skills have seen the sporting development of thousands of local kids in the 30 years he has been volunteering his time in the community. He is undoubtedly one of the best known faces in the local area and within the footballing world of East London everyone know Derek Spicer. Derek originally played as a youth player for Leyton Orient FC but found his calling in coaching when he took up the coaching position during evenings at Morpeth Street Youth Centre, just after he had qualified as an F.A. coach. Immediately he spread his influence far and wide, coaching at Lawston School and Hackney District Schools, before finding his first true home at the Mulberry Youth Centre, where he spent three decades working Friday nights. It was here that Derek first started to work with ethnic minority groups, which was the start of a long and successful community partnership. He is still coaching the Bangladesh Youth Movement (BYM) to this day. Derek was also head coach on a team that toured Bangladesh in the 1990s and that was such a success that the best of the Bengali players formed the triumphant Sporting Bengal, which Derek also coached and who did the double in its first season. Despite these big time successes, Derek is best know for his efforts on the ground in the community and it is the effort and dedication from people like himself that do so much to improve the harmonious spirit of this area.

George Manners has been instrumental in turning the Bethnal Green Technology College into a haven for excellence in the sport of weighlifting. George deserves our appreciation and applause for his dedication to a sport that perhaps doesn’t have the mass appeal of some of the others in the area. But weight lifting, as George knows only too well, is a sport of the spirit that requires hard graft and enormous will power (not to mention strength!). George Manners has always lived and trained in the East End and has been a British Champion weight lifter on six occasions, as well as representing Great Britain and England in all the major championships: the Olympic Games, the European Championships, the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games where he won two Silver and one Bronze medal. In his time at Bethnal Green Technology College, George has nurtured the talent of many children and in the past four years alone, he has achieved a staggering amount of success, with 19 British School Boys and Girls Champions emerging from his ranks. George is a dedicated teacher who passionately believes in both his sport and his community, and his efforts are providing the area with another burst of sporting vitality and diversity. The East End is lucky to have him.

Linda Hayes is an amazing woman whose voluntary work for one of the prize sporting assets of the area, the Tower Hamlets Schools Gymnastics and Dance Display Team, has been tireless and extraordinary. Linda works as a volunteer leader and is the foundation upon which the smooth running of this successful club relies upon. Her roles include secretarial work, finances, chaperoning children whilst away on tour (12 times abroad to her name and still counting!), organising the kit for shows and events such as the Eurathlon 3, helping to plan the day-to-day and yearly calendar, organising fundraising events, dismantling and erecting equipment, coaching twice a week and acting as a parent representative on the management group of the club. Even by the standards of this busy club, Linda is truly a superwoman of enormous generosity of spirit and hard work.

Kelvin Richards has been involved in athletics for 20 years now, both as athlete and coach. It is in the latter category that Kelvin has brought his considerable skills and commitment to the Victoria Park Harriers & Tower Hamlets Athletic Club. Kelvin is primarily the Long Jump/Triple Jump coach, as well as the sprint coach but he also devotes much of his time to working with the younger emerging talents of the club, organising their attendance at League and open meetings, as well as managing the young athletes team. This younger squad has had an incredibly successful year, ending it with triumph by winning their division and thus earning promotion. His team leadership has been exceptional but he has also spent long hours nurturing the skills of individual athletes; it was Kelvin who trained Symone Belle up to participation in international competition in the long jump. Everyone at the club knows Kelvin to be a man of passion for his sport and for the development of new British sportsmen and women in this community and for this he deserves our heartfelt congratulations.