Fans Supporting Foodbanks says the pressure on the charity is increasing “week on week”

Liverpool Walton is the only parliamentary constituency in the UK with two Premier League football grounds in it – Anfield and Goodison Park. And while combined, these clubs and their stadiums are worth billions of pounds, statistics based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 ranks Walton among the five most deprived constituencies in England, while two other Merseyside constituencies, Liverpool Riverside and Knowsley, are also named.

“There’s a huge turnover of money but very little of it ripples down into the local community”, says Dave Kelly, co-founder and chair of Fans Supporting Foodbanks (FSF), speaking to the ECHO as the new football season begins. FSF was formed by Dave, from Everton’s Blue Union, alongside Ian Byrne, now MP for West Derby and from the Spirit of Shankly supporters union, in October 2015.

The charity’s aim was to collect food donations from fans outside the teams’ stadia on matchdays and give to foodbanks and help the growing number of people who are forced to use them. Originally using a wheelie bin to collect food and other household items for those in need, the organisation now collects in a seven and a half tonne van, manages eight pantries across Merseyside and has campaigned for the human right to food for several years.

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Despite FSF’s growth, Dave says the pressure is increasing “week on week”. Speaking about the origins of Fans Supporting Foodbanks, he said: “Me and Ian Byrne had been down to London for a meeting with the Premier League about prices of away tickets.

“They were curious about an Everton and Liverpool fan being this close. They said the Man City and Man Utd lads wouldn’t come to London on the same train; someone there said to us it’s funny how Scousers stick together. So on the train back to Liverpool, we had a chat and thought there might be a way for us to do something together because of how dire the situation had become due to austerity.”

He added: “We went to a meeting in a local community centre and outside there was a big queue for the foodbank. We thought we could use our networks to come together and raise items for foodbanks. So, when Everton played Man Utd on a cold and wet Saturday morning in October, we went down to Goodison with a wheelie bin which had been donated to us to collect items.

“From the start, we wanted to be extremely careful to not become Red or Blue – or even Scouse for that matter – so other clubs around the country could adopt what we were doing. Since starting, we’ve gone from our wheelie bin to a small van, then to a bigger van – and then to a seven and a half tonne van. Right before covid, we were collecting a tonne of food every matchday.”

The pandemic and resulting lockdowns became “a huge problem” for FSF, as they relied on matchday supporters for donations. Dave said: “We went into the dark unknown and we didn’t know how long it was going to last. But within 48 hours of setting up a Just Giving page, we surpassed our £10k target and reached £40k. Throughout covid, we were totally reliant on football supporters donating and, after two years, we had raised £400k which enabled us to carry on what we were doing and do other things too.”

Dave said that since Labour returned to power eight weeks ago, he’s “seen no improvement whatsoever” to the situation. He added: “The interesting thing about poverty and the causes of poverty is that it evolves. When FSF began, the people we were helping were predominantly homeless or really struggling with benefits. This was compounded when the Tory government introduced Universal Credit, where new claimants had to wait six to eight weeks before their first payment – so you had people going all this time without any income.

“And it’s not just unemployed people who are relying on benefits now – some people have full-time jobs and their pay is supplemented by family tax credits, etcetera. Then in covid, lots of people were furloughed and their earnings were cut, so our demographic changed totally. There’s large waves of people who’ve never claimed benefits and never been out of work who are now making decisions about whether to put a meal on the table or whether to turn on the heating.”

He added: “People don’t realise the amount of people who are actually in work but having to claim benefits at the same time. The pursuit of austerity and the two-child benefit cap has really hit communities hard. What I find offensive is that food insecurity and food poverty are political choices and could be removed by political decisions.”

The two child benefit cap currently means most families only receive benefits for their first two children. Ian Byrne, along with six other Labour MPs had the whip suspended by the Parliamentary Labour Party after voting for an opposition amendment in the House of Commons to scrap the limit in July this year.

In December 2020, FSF launched a campaign for the Right to Food 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. Dave said: “We’ve been trying to convince politicians to implement a right to food.

“After the last war, the British government signed a UN declaration to give people the right to food but it’s never been enshrined in law. We believe it should be implemented and enshrined in the law as a human right. Liverpool City Council are the UK’s first to support the Right to Food being enshrined into the law. I would like to think that a Labour government would start putting legislation in place very soon.”

He added: “The situation is continuing to get worse and the pressure on us increases week on week. We’re feeding over 2,500 people per week and that number is only going in an upwards trajectory.”

Fans Supporting Foodbanks do more than just collect food; they educate people on the root causes of poverty and work to promote unity, equality and justice in communities.

Dave said: “When Fans Supporting Foodbanks was set up, we deliberately went out and engaged with minority groups and we’re proud of our good relationships with these groups. We’ve got a humanitarian crisis on our streets so ethnicity doesn’t come into play; if someone is hungry, that’s all we’re interested in.”