On 8th February, Show Racism the Red Card came to Rodney Parade for their annual educational club event with Newport County AFC.
Captain Scot Bennett and striker Lenell John-Lewis attended the event and were grilled by over 40 pupils from Somerton Park Primary School at a “press conference” surrounding racism, whilst former County player and Welsh International, Steve Jenkins, hosted the event.
Before attending the event, the Somerton Park pupils were tasked with creating their own newspaper and were told by the editor (or teacher) that they needed to write an article on racism in sport. Like any good journalists, the pupils did lots of research around the subject before carefully selecting questions to put to Bennett, John-Lewis and Jenkins at the “Press Conference”.
The journalists posed some very tricky and challenging questions proving the depth and thoroughness of their research. There was a prize of a Newport County AFC signed football and SRtRC goodie bag for the “Best Question” (see picture above) and all the pupils had chance to meet the players and get their autographs once the press conference was over.
The pupils then returned to school to finish off their articles proving that, not only was this an excellent opportunity for the pupils to learn about the very real threat of racism in sport and the wider community, but it also had an educational and literary purpose as the pupils honed their article and blog writing skills.
We would like to join Show Racism the Red Card in thanking Somerton Primary School for attending the event and extend our thanks to Steve Jenkins for hosting and to SRtRC for running the event.
The event was funded by the Welsh Government and the FAW.