Latics signs pledge to help jobless

SIGNING UP . . . Latics manager Joe Royle (front left) with Inspire2Independence managing director Matthew Gore and directors (back, from the left) Diane Barrow, Donna Fannon, Jacky Boxton, James Gore and Kent Mayall

OLDHAM ATHLETIC is backing an initiative aimed at helping to get the long-term unemployed back into work.

Manager Joe Royle has signed a pledge and joined other clubs including Manchester United, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Preston and Morecambe which are also involved.

York-based company Inspire 2 Independence (i2i), which has an office in Oldham and whose founder Kent Mayall is from the town, is aiming to get 5,000 jobseekers back into work by 2012.

The firm tenders for Government contacts and the funding for this venture has come from JobCentre Plus.

As football clubs are at the heart of the local community, i2i will embrace them in its efforts to get people from welfare into work.

It plans to hold coaching academies at the clubs, including Boundary Park, as there is an emphasis on activity-based learning.

And by using football, the project hopes to improve the job prospects of the unemployed.
Former Sunderland, Derby and Crystal Palace footballer Marco Gabbiadini is one of i2i’s 150-strong work force. He is the head of their sports-based team. The firm was formed in 2004 by Mr Mayall (38), who was raised in Springhead and who was a pupil at Saddleworth School and a former player for Hollinwood FC.

“It is great to have the support of Joe Royle and it is an opportunity for me to come back to my home town and to try and help people get off welfare and into work,” he explained.

LATICS fans with their eye on the information superhighway got the chance to meet the club’s famous mascot and learn more about opportunities to surf the Internet during a fun day in Oldham’s O2 store.

Shoppers young and old rubbed shoulders with Chaddy the Owl as part of the fun day, which was designed to promote the Government’s new Home Access Scheme, which aims to kit out low income homes with computers to ensure that every child has access to the Internet.

Oldham, along with Suffolk, is one of only two places chosen to pilot the scheme.

The event, organised by IT company XMA, Toshiba, O2 and the Oldham Athletic Community Trust, gave youngsters a chance to find out more. Visitors were also able to enter three prize draws to win a mobile phone, with Chaddy the Owl picking out the lucky winners.