Mayor lends his support

A group of trainee coaches representing West Ham United at a prestigious careers event were rewarded with a visit from Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

The coaches from the West Ham United Community Sports Trust spent three days at Skills London, delivering high quality football sessions to more than 44,000 other young people. Throughout the event they encouraged prospective candidates to apply for places on the Trainee and Mentoring and Voluntary Work Experience schemes by giving talks about their experiences of working for West Ham United and by the end of the event, more than 1,000 applications had been received.

Chief among their admirers was the Mayor, who was led through a series of exercises by trainee coach Jackie Alecho. Mick King, Chief Executive of the West Ham United Community Sports Trust, discussed the aims and objectives of the project with the Mayor, who was impressed by the trainees' level of professionalism.

Afterwards the Mayor said: " I really enjoyed meeting young Londoners and the WHU Community Sports Trust coaches and I even had the chance to have a go at some ball skills myself! So many of our young people work hard and achieve great things. I'm keen to support their ambitions and help them boost their skills so they can achieve success in their chosen careers."

After the event, the Community Sports Trust CEO was delighted with the coaches' performance. "The trainees demonstrated as a team their growing confidence and levels of capability throughout the exhibition," he said. "Their presence embodied the ethos of Skills London, which is about enabling London's youth to discover the options open to them, and forge a responsible plan for their future.

"In doing so they not only created a positive image of young people in general, but represented West Ham United to their peers and the wider community."