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Drugs football team blows final whistle

Lucy Adamson

Sunday Times (UK)

Sunday 11 Jan 1998

CALTON Athletic, the football team of former drug
addicts which advised the makers of Trainspotting and was
immortalised in a television drama starring Robbie Coltrane
and Lenny Henry, is to be disbanded.

David Bryce, director of Calton Athletic recovery group,
said its drugs prevention and schools work would continue
but its Glasgow drop-in centre would close with the loss of
six full-time workers, including Bryce and his deputy,
David Main. Both plan to continue as volunteers.

All work on recovering addicts will stop, including the day
programme which last year saw more than 100 "graduates"
from the rehabilitation programme. Prison outreach work
will also be discontinued as Calton concentrates solely on
prevention and schools.

Greater Glasgow health board provides £250,000 for
Calton, but Bryce, with the backing of his staff, decided
last week to withdraw from funding after criticising the
board and the council's social work department.

Bryce recently claimed that Calton had fared better under
a Conservative government and criticised Labour's lack of
support for abstinence-based projects.

The group's recently opened drugs awareness academy
will continue. Scotland Against Drugs, the cross-party
campaign, has contributed £50,000 to the academy which
will train drug workers and devise prevention schemes.
Additional funds have come from Figment Films, Polygram
Video and the Celebrities Guild of Great Britain because of
the group's contribution to Trainspotting.

Bryce has recently suffered ill-health and says he owes it to
his family to reduce the pressure. "It was extremely difficult
making these choices but I have a responsibility to the
other group workers and the schools action team and this
restructuring is for the good of the club," he said.

as a football team for
recovering addicts, as depicted in the television drama
Alive and Kicking starring Coltrane and Henry. The group
acted as advisers to the makers of Trainspotting and
recently received a cheque for £20,000 from video sales of
the film.

Calton at present works with 1,000 addicts in central
Scotland, through the drop-in centre, prison outreach
work, and work and education programmes with addicts'
families. Bryce said he would "honour present
commitments" before restructuring in April.

He said Calton hoped to expand its influence south of the
border with several projects based on its work in
Glasgow. Next month advisers would visit London to meet
the Stone Foundation, a charity concerned with drug and
alcohol addiction.

Thaddeus Birschard, clerk to the Stone trustees, said: "The
trustees were immensely impressed and saw Calton as real
people doing real work."

Bryce said it would be easier to expand in London. "We
get more support there than we do in Scotland. We will
not stand for anything less than full co-operation now," he
said.

In May, Calton will visit the Tower Hamlets Drug
Challenge Fund in London and work with third division
Leyton Orient FC.

Dr Tim Crabbe, of Goldsmiths University, is organising a
Government-backed conference that will hear the
experiences of Calton and its work with sport and drugs.

"There's a lot of interest in their ability to use sport as a
way to get a message across and their success is reflected
in the number of people who come to them," he said.

Bryce was optimistic about the future in London. "I feel this
is the direction we must head in because of the rejection
and mistrust we put up with here," he said.

Dr Laurence Gruer, consultant in health and public
medicine for Greater Glasgow health board, said he was
optimistic that an agreement could be reached but agreed
that Calton might have found its working relationship
restrictive.

David Macauley, campaign director of Scotland Against
Drugs, described the decision as "a dreadful loss to the city
of Glasgow" and said he was extremely distressed by the
news.

 

 

 

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