Leyton Orient defender Omar Beckles on his London community work
Leyton Orient’s community champion: Omar Beckles draws on the hard knocks of his own upbringing to help steer London’s kids away from gangs and crime… all while guiding the O’s back into League One during an unforgettable campaign!
- Omar Beckles has been named League Two Community Player of the Season
- Defender gives his time to help out with various good causes in east London
- It’s been a memorable season as Orient won promotion to League One
Not many teachers would dare interrupt one of their lessons for a kickabout, even if it did incentivise the kids to give their full attention.
But when you’re a successful professional footballer standing at the front of the class, you tend to find all eyes are trained on you anyway.
So it is for Leyton Orient’s Omar Beckles – League Two promotion winner, dressing room leader, inspirational speaker, mentor of youth, chairman of the Professional Footballers Association and someone selflessly giving his time to give something back.
It’s been an interesting few days for the 31-year-old defender. Last Thursday, he was nominated for the EFL Player in the Community Award, along with Rotherham’s Hakeem Odoffin and George Edmundson of Ipswich, for the second year in a row.
On Saturday, the O’s won 2-0 at Sutton United and believed, for a few giddy minutes, that their promotion to League One was mathematically confirmed.
Omar Beckles (second right) celebrates Leyton Orient’s promotion into League One
It’s been a memorable season for the defender, who has also won EFL League Two’s Community Player award for the second consecutive year
As the players danced in front of their travelling fans, news filtered through that a win for Bradford and a last-gasp equaliser for Stockport meant they weren’t quite up yet.
There is a funny outtake from a video of the partying players posted on Orient’s Twitter feed when manager Richie Wellens comes over and asks the cameraman ‘are we up?’
‘No’ comes the reply and Wellens doesn’t quite know how to break it to the lads.
But Orient have been head and shoulders above everyone else in League Two all season so it was only a matter of time. Still, the actual getting over the line moment was pretty bizarre.
On Tuesday night, with Orient trailing 2-0 at Gillingham after Beckles had been sent off in the 14th minute, the Priestfield floodlights failed with 12 minutes to go.
During the delay, news came through that Swindon had beaten Bradford and Orient had done it. Now the party really could begin – and certainly did.
The league title was secured over the weekend with a 2-0 home win over Crewe.
Leyton Orient’s players celebrate Charlie Kelman’s goal in their title-clinching win over Crewe
Delighted fans stormed the Brisbane Road pitch at full-time as the League Two title was sealed
It has been a season to remember for the O’s as they cantered away to win promotion
EFL clubs’ £865m boost to communities
EFL clubs and their community initiatives generated a staggering £865million of social value to towns and cities during the 2021-22 season.
With 80 per cent of the population in England and Wales living within 15 miles of an EFL Club, their community programmes delivered over 580,000 hours of events and activities, an impact report found.
EFL CEO Trevor Birch said: ‘Our clubs and their Club Community Organisations [CCOs] play an integral role in their communities, responding to the ever-changing needs of local people at an unprecedented scale.
‘Last season alone, our Clubs and CCOs engaged over 840,000 people and generated more than £101m for community investment.’
‘It has been a season I have thoroughly enjoyed. We have a great bunch of lads, a real special group and a togetherness that has been unmatched in any other dressing room I have been in,’ Beckles tells Mail Sport.
‘Richie has had a massive impact, allowing us to express ourselves and play in a real positive way.
‘He says the right things and the right time, which I really appreciate. Knowing when we need a kick up the backside but also knowing when we need to take the sting out of a nervous bunch.’
But we’re here to talk about Beckles as a community champion and his ambassadorial work at Belmont Park, a school for students with Social, Emotional and/or Mental Health (SEMH) issues in Leyton, is especially impressive.
‘These are kids that may have had affiliations with gangs, been involved with come or had run-ins with the police. Basically, these kids are pretty much written off,’ he explains.
‘For you to go from one classroom to another, to go from one hallway to another, you need a key. There are smashed windows left, right and centre.
‘These kids have a lot of challenges, they come from difficult backgrounds and homes.
‘I share my own personal story while giving them a few principles to carry in life. We’ll speak about perseverance, how they deal with their emotions, conflict resolution.
Beckles with his EFL League Two Community Player of the Season award from 2021-2022
‘My early life was a school of hard knocks, it wasn’t plain-sailing, there was a lot of hardship and I’ve suffered quite a bit.
‘People do, be it bereavement, or the rejection that takes place in football, it is hard navigating it all.
‘Nonetheless, I get to stand in front of them as a professional footballer and someone who would be deemed as some significance. They get to understand my journey and a story like that encourages them.
‘I want them to understand the importance of life choices, getting a concept of times, especially in a day and age when kids are obsessed with gaming etc and they start taking school for granted.
‘I get to really speak into that level of entitlement and hopefully make them more grateful for the opportunities they do have.’
Beckles met King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla during a royal visit to a Project Zero centre in Walthamstow last year
Beckles’ community work with Project Zero is just one way he gives back to the community
Beckles, who grew up in east London and started out at Millwall, can relate to much of what the kids in front of him in the classroom are going through.
‘Be it anti-social behaviour or being associated with gangs when I was younger, being distracted with girls. I can relate to their story, I speak their language so it helps me to engage with them,’ he says.
‘Also, I get to share with them the disappointments in life. I am into my reading now. I wish I’d got into it sooner and been more passionate about it in school.
‘I wish I’d grasped the understanding and the ability to really listen well, take in information and apply it. If was able to listen better as a young player, I wonder where I’d be in football.
‘When I speak about those situations, I hope a seed has been sown that will water. I am sure years down the line I will have someone with a deep voice come up to me and say ‘Omar, don’t you remember me?’
So is it challenging to keep such an audience engaged with what you’re saying?
‘The kids are looking at a professional footballer and going ‘oh wow’ so the level of engagement I get maybe from a kid your average speaker wouldn’t get,’ he says.
Beckles draws on personal experience from his own life to try and steer youngsters away from the temptations of gangs and crime
‘I’ve listened to a lot of people who are really good speakers in general and I try to pick up little cues and good techniques.
‘In the middle of a session I’ll break it up and we’ll go and kick a ball around – that is really good for their attention span. Or it might be an ice-breaker like ‘would you rather’ or a silly little game that engages them.’
Beckles is also an ambassador with a London-based charity called Project Zero, who run anti-knife crime campaigns with the aim of seeing a year of zero deaths due to youth violence.
He even met the King and Queen Consort when they visited one of the charity’s youth centres in Walthamstow.
The defender also helps run futsal sessions for kids in partnership with the Leyton Orient Trust.
Beckles celebrates with team-mate Craig Clay after Orient secured promotion at Gillingham
‘It’s just a free-flowing session. There is a real need for a safe space that the kids can just come and attend, come and build a relationship with the club,’ he says.
‘Nowadays kids are bombarded with information about football – stop, start, stand still. It’s an information overload and what gets neglected is the character building.
‘I just wanted to put on a session that restores the distant memories of jumpers for goalposts. You just rock up, play and it gives a bit of autonomy in the kids’ hands to dictate what the rules might be and just really allows them to engage.
‘They have been buzzing.’
Like much of the feeling around Orient in this season to remember.
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