Club launches employment scheme for military veterans

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is recruiting ex-military servicemen and women to work as stewards, security staff and hosts in its new stadium.

According to the Royal British Legion’s Household Survey there are 1,110,000 veterans living in the UK of a working age and 120,000 of these are unemployed. Working aged veterans are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as their equivalents.

The Club, via its Foundation, is working in partnership with Sporting Force, the military charity, to fill 50 full-time and part-time jobs. This is the largest veteran recruitment scheme by any Premier League Football Club.

Successful candidates will complete a training course at the Club and will be fully qualified in time for the opening of the stadium later this year.

To date, as a direct result of the new stadium scheme, 1,210 new jobs have been delivered across a range of industries, including retail, education, construction, hospitality, IT and security, with all going to local people.

When complete, the development will support around 3,500 jobs, with £293 million pumped into the local economy each year. An increase of 1,700 new jobs and £166 million local spending a year – an enormous impact for an area in real need of new jobs and more economic activity.

The scheme was officially launched today (Friday 9 March) with an event at Percy House, attended by Club Ambassador Ledley King. Military veterans and Spurs fans Daniel Bingley and Davin Burke – both taking part in the programme – also attended the Training Centre earlier this week to watch the first team train and meet Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Mauricio Pochettino.

Donna-Maria Cullen, Executive Director, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and Chair of Trustees, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, said: “The Club is a long-standing supporter of our Armed Forces and we are proud to be offering meaningful, long-term employment opportunities to ex-military servicemen and women through our new stadium development scheme. Our Veterans programme, in partnership with Sporting Force, is a further example of innovative employability programmes that the Club, via its Foundation, has successfully delivered since the stadium development scheme began.”

Tommy Lowther, Sporting Force Founder, said: “After leaving the military, adjusting to civilian life can be challenging. Many veterans are unable to find work and suffer financially. Working in partnership with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is a brilliant opportunity to give ex-service men and women a new sense of purpose and a feeling of belonging.”

The new stadium will be the largest capacity football club stadium in London, creating a new sports and leisure destination for the capital with a hive of activity 365 days a year, a new museum, an innovative Skywalk, 21st century retail experiences, first-class conference and banqueting and high-quality leisure facilities including restaurants and a hotel – and will attract in excess of two million visitors per year.

The Club has to date already delivered 258 new homes, 100 per cent affordable, the new Brook House Primary School on the site of an old rubber factory, the 78,000 square foot Sainsbury’s supermarket and the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham school (LAET).

The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation is now delivering a hub for enterprise, skills and training, creating sustainable, long-term education and employment opportunities for local people at Percy House, a prominent 18th Century building on Tottenham High Road with historic links to the Club, that has been restored and renovated to become a thriving community hub with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and match funding from the Club.

Percy House will deliver over 95,000 hours of community development, health, enterprise, education and sports programmes every year to those living in the Club’s local area. Heritage Lottery funding also ensures that the rich history of Tottenham is passed on to future generations, with the instatement of new Heritage Ambassadors, who along with the support of local historians, will deliver outreach sessions in schools and community venues.

Built on the site of The Black House, a mansion demolished in the early 1740s and whose inhabitants, the Percy family, were connected to the namesake of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club - Harry Hotspur, the Grade II* listed building played a pioneering role in the launch of the pirate radio movement in the 1960s.

To register your interest for the jobs, please visit www.sportingforce.org/register