Ben Rigby, the Managing Director of Sporting Communities, first began working with David Walsh in 2009 with a Derbyshire-based charity. At this point David was a participant in the Alvaston-based community football session, which targeted young people at risk.
After a year of volunteering, at the age of 17 Ben took David on as an Assistant Coach so that he could develop his skills and continue on the positive path he was embarking on.
It was not long before David was promoted to Lead Coach, showing excellent skill and motivation, not only as a coach, but as a role model and mentor to other young people. The behaviour within the Alvaston youth community improved due to other young people seeing the pathway that David was on and wanting to replicate that themselves.
There was also a surge in volunteers helping out at the Alvaston session and Alvaston young people volunteering at their annual road race event. David went on to win ‘Coach of the Year’.
When Ben set up Sporting Communities in May 2012, Ben then asked David to join him in helping to provide a new, ethical, high quality sport and social development service within Derby City and David gladly agreed.
David now delivers a range of different sports across Derby City, in particular targeting disadvantaged communities. His innovative, inclusive approach to socially engaging participants and building a positive relationship that makes people feel inspired to try new sports and regularly participate is one which continues to have a fantastic response.
Many of these coaching sessions are done outside on public facilities such as Multi-use Games Areas and open green space. The vast majority of participants accessing his coaching sessions are ones that cannot afford to access a local sports club and would not otherwise have the capacity to engage in sport.
In all of the areas that David delivers diversionary activities through sport, there have been year on year falls in anti-social behaviour and increases in both wellbeing of participants and community cohesion. David has used sport and coaching to completely change his life.
We asked David what success would look like to him from a coaching perspective?
“I want to re-establish Derby City’s youth and family services and I want to use sport and play to engage as many participants as possible.
“I would like to see these sessions in all 17 wards of my city and act as a safeguarding mechanism to protect each community.”
David was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC Unsung Hero Award, and a short film charting his coaching story can be seen here.
You can read more about David’s journey on our UK Coaching Ambassador’s page, where he goes into more detail about why he fell in love with coaching...
“I want to help as many people as possible make the right choices in life,” he said after being named 2017 UK Coaching Children's Coach of the Year.
Coaching has helped me develop as a person. I’m more confident and happy and I go to sleep every night with a smile on my face, knowing I have made a difference to someone’s life. I love my job, which makes such an impact on my mental well-being – just enjoying what I do.
“Sometimes people just need that one positive encounter to shape their whole future. It happened to me and through coaching I’ve gone on to help thousands.”
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