Fighting Cancer through football from a suburb of Portsmouth

Cancer is a disease that tears through families all across the world and it can be contracted by people of all shapes, sizes and ages. In the suburbs of Portsmouth, I visited a small charity shop named ‘Friends Fighting Cancer’.

About Friends Fighting Cancer

The charity was formerly known as Football For Cancer, but after branching out into other sports, such as boxing, darts, cricket and even fishing, they decided to change name to Friends Fighting Cancer to truly encapsulate the broad range of work they undertake to make lives better.

History of FFC

We are ‘Football for Cancer’, a non profit fundraising charity that raises money for local Cancer related charities and families by hosting events throughout the year. Founded in 2008 our initial strategy was to hold a yearly knockout football tournament. Over two weekends, 60 players formed four teams each of which was named after someone that had passed away or was suffering as a result of Cancer. The tournament created so much interest that the following year it doubled in size to 120 players. This made eight teams, covering four weekends. Each player paid a £60 entry fee to take part in the competition as well as personally raising as much as possible through sponsorship money.

The games were all held at local football clubs. The personalised kits, trophies and match day programmes were all sponsored by local businesses. Our aim is not only to raise a lot of money and at the same time have fun doing it, but also to build a community of players, sponsors and supporters who can take part in our events and help raise awareness of the local charities we try to support.

A short history of our achievements: Since inception we have raised over £1,000,000 (Yes One Million!), we have held nine tournaments, three one off matches at Portsmouth Football Club, as well as many raffles and buckets collections. Walk for Cancer is an event held each year which helps us raise the amazing sums that we are now achieving. We are now nearing our Fourth ‘Fight for Cancer’ boxing tournament at the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth. Two Skydives have been completed as well as three Darts tournaments. In our first year (2009) we raised over £14,000 for Marie Curie Cancer care. In 2010 we chose the Rowans Hospice, this is a charity close to many peoples hearts in Portsmouth and managed to raise £32,000. In 2011 we focused on the Rosemary Foundation which was a small foundation offering a free hospice care at home service, this was urgently in need of funds. Given the financial constraints being felt in 2011 we were delighted to be able to hand over £22,000. In 2012 we raised £27,000 for the Tom Prince trust. 2013 saw us hand over a cheque for £33,000 to Macmillan Cancer Support and in 2104 we made a staggering £50,000 which was presented to the children’s charity Naomi House.

Since 2015 we have become our own Charity with our own unique charity number 1155194 registered with Companies House and the Charity Commission, this allows us to support local families by giving means tested grants from £100 to £500 and in some rare cases even higher. We have built a great team of people who organise our events by generously giving their time, we are also proud to have gained support from many companies and local football clubs.

Cosham is a suburb just north of the island city Portsmouth and it is the home of the Friends Fighting Cancer shop, a charity shop that specialises in football shirts. The shop is just one arm of the fantastic work the charity does in raising money for cancer.

Like millions across the globe, I myself have had family suffer from this disgusting disease, combine this with my love for football shirts, I had to venture down to check this place out and talk to the staff.

It is situated on a small high street in the middle of Cosham and the first thing you are greeted by is a stand of shirts dedicated to the locals passion – Portsmouth FC. Whilst not my cup of tea, what lies beyond most certainly was.

Football shirts are collectors items to some, they are fashion items to others. But to Friends Fighting Cancer, they are a means to save lives.

Football fans of all allegiances will find something that suits them, hundreds of shirts filled the racks, from Tanzania and Flamengo to a dedicated section for clubs like Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United. They even stock signed shirts from the likes of Fernando Torres and John Barnes.

I spoke to the man running the shop for the day, who explained to me how they receive shipments of shirts from around the country from willing donors even as far as Poland. A recent shipment of 200+ shirts had been sorted and put out on display for all to see and look through.

The store is welcoming, with the staff happy to talk about their events, their future ambitions and the success the charity has had. Raising over £1 million and hosting football legends like Peter Shilton, who spent the day signings things for the customers.

They have high ambition to grow their charity to further help those in need, with dreams of opening a second shop in nearby Southampton or even further down the coast in Brighton.

Friends Fighting Cancer is a great little store for any football fan and especially those with a collection of football shirts. I implore anyone who is around the south coast area to visit, browse and find something to suit you. Not only will you walk away with a top quality shirt, but you’ll have helped contribute to helping better the life of someone suffering with the dreaded disease that is cancer.

Me? I picked up a Palmeiras shirt, make that shirt number 42 of lockdown…