Once dogged by gang culture and violence, Davy O’Neil and his team there have brought young people together from different parts of the community, showing them that they have more in common – and more to unite around – than that which threatened to divide them.

“I’ll put my hand up, when I grew up, we all got into a bit of trouble, but when you got older, obviously you got away from it,” O’Neil recalls.

“What I had noticed, maybe about 14 or 15 years ago, was it was starting to creep in again. So myself and a couple of local boys said we’ll start a wee soccer school. Get the kids off the street and give them something else to do.

“What we tried to do was get the guys from other areas together, and we started them dead young.”

Hence Fernhill Soccer School was born.

Located in Rutherglen on the southeastern side of Scotland’s largest city, it generates a social opportunity for young people from different neighbourhoods to come together and avoid being dragged into the alternative option of gang violence.

It’s provided a setting for what many would have deemed impossible.

“We’ve got kids coming in from about seven different areas now,” O’Neil says. “That was unthinkable years ago. If you’d said 20 years ago, there’ll be people mixing in Fernhill, that would never have happened.

“There would never have been a mix of kids, even at 11 and 12 it wouldn’t have happened, but we’ve managed to get them mixing.

“In my opinion, the gang fighting has disappeared. I’m not saying it’s all down to us. Different bits are still pockets of trouble, but Fernhill is definitely not as bad.”

The emphasis of Fernhill Soccer School has always been and remains to bring people together through football, rather than provide a competitive setting like other clubs.

“It’s just about boys and girls coming off the street,” O’Neil adds. ”We don’t charge, so we get quite a lot coming. I think we’ve probably got over 100 registered, but normally we can average between 50 and 70 kids.

“We’ve got an inside hall where we keep the smaller ones, three year olds probably up to around about seven or eight. And then outside we split the park up into three bits with teenagers up to about 13, 14, 15.”

Despite the focus on playing football socially, the group counts current Bournemouth AFC and former Queen’s Park goalkeeper, Callan McKenna among their many graduates.

Supporting O’Neil and Fernhill on their journey has been the team from Sported, a charity resourcing a UK-wide network of 5,000 grassroots sports clubs and community groups to impact their communities through sport and physical activity.

Alongside access to grant funding and free resources and guidance, Sported – who recently launched their Grassroots Sport Unleashed strategy – has a wealth of in-person support from local field teams and expert volunteer consultants.

“The team have come up to our club and Sported is the only organisation that has actually visited us in years and seen what we’re about,” O’Neil states.

“They point us in the right direction, because unfortunately, I go to a lot of meetings and some of the funding, it’s not for us. I’ve wasted my time recently in loads and loads of meetings and just sitting there.

“When you go to Sported, it points you in the right direction. It saves us going through a lot of rigmarole.”