West Ham United’s Players’ Project has seen local homeless people being offered offered vital services and respite from life on the street, by visiting the London Stadium.

Players from West Ham’s men’s and women’s first teams took time out on Thursday afternoon to help provide food, hairdressing, job support and podiatry services, as well as organising clothing collections and putting on a PlayStation fun zone to support those in the local community who need it most.

Those involved included: “Mark Noble, Aaron Cresswell, Jack Wilshere and Xande Silva from the men’s first team, and Gilly Flaherty, Lucienne Reichardt, Erin Simon and Brianna Visalli from the women’s team.

The official site declared: “Helping tackle poverty is a key strand of the Players’ Project, which launched in November and will see West Ham United commit a further £10m over the next three years; this will further expand the Club’s reach whilst at the same time creating deeper provision with our more deprived communities. 
 
West Ham United is dedicated to delivering innovative, inspiring and impactful programmes in a way that provides immediate and long-term benefit and support to those that the Club reaches.”

ClaretandHugh says: When the Players Project was first  launchedt the club the cynics greeted it by suggesting it was nothing more than s gigantic PR stunt. That’s an easy trap to fall into within a game where things are often nothing like they seem to be. But whichever way you look at the club’s initiative it’s brilliant news for those who have nothing. Various projects are regularly on the go and that the homeless on this occasion were treated to a series of  intiatives is great news. If it’s good PR for the club at the same time then there’s nothing wrong with that. Hwever, it’s pretty indicative of the state of our media that they can make headlines out of some historic Declan Rice tweets whilst totally ignoring events such as described here by a number of the players. We are delighted to see such  initiatives. Long may they last and bring hope to those without any!