From rags to riches to DIY, Geoff Horsfield’s support for Birmingham's underdogs is no surprise

The former Birmingham City and West Brom player talks to The Independent about the Geoff Horsfield Foundation and its work fighting the cause of those left behind by society

Former Birmingham City and West Brom player Geoff Horsfield helps to home those left behind by society or in need of outside help. (www.bcfc.com)

Geoff Horsfield has a story about Jonathan Greening, his former West Bromwich Albion colleague, which suggests that footballers and DIY might be a recipe for disaster. It happened on a visit to Greening’s house when Horsfield looked on bemused as his friend tried to a fix a mirror to a wall. “He’s got this mirror with only a very narrow frame and I’m thinking, ‘It’s not even going to hold up’. He puts a fucking nail in the glass and it goes boom! I’ve just looked at him and gone, ‘Did you not think that were going to happen’ and he went, ‘I don’t know.’”

Horsfield, a builder before becoming a Premier League footballer with Birmingham City and West Brom, is telling this story in the dust-filled downstairs of a house he is renovating in the Erdington district of Birmingham. “This will be the kitchen,” he explains of the space we are standing in, together with Birmingham winger Viv Solomon-Otabor and the club’s assistant manager, Pep Clotet. “Don’t tell me you’ve never scraped a wall,” he grins at the pair before putting them to work stripping wallpaper.

Once finished, this will be the fifth property that the 44-year-old’s Geoff Horsfield Foundation will have made available to homeless people and those suffering with addiction problems. Horsfield, who auctioned off his medals when establishing the foundation, explains that his inspiration came from conversations with residents during a job renovating support accommodation elsewhere in the city. “Just going in and saying, ‘How are you?’ or ‘What about Blues winning or Villa winning’, it brightens their day, instead of talking about their addiction or alcohol or where they’ve been,” he says. "I thought that with my name and what I can get, it can help these people, it really can – people will want to help ‘Geoff Horsfield’ more than Joe Bloggs on the street.

“My goal now is to help as many people as we can and get them their own flats and back into normal society – I feel as passionate about this as in any football match I ever played in and the way I played, I wasn’t blessed with skill and speed but my hard work and determination made up for it.”

Once people are referred to Horsfield’s foundation, he offers not just a bed but the blocks with which to rebuild their lives, beginning with access to benefits, prescriptions and food. “We’ve got good relationships with food banks around Erdington. I get loads of donations for clothes and Blues have given me six bags of old training stuff, so we can hand them out. If somebody’s struggling I’ll go down to Asda, or wherever.

“We’ve had a meeting with Birmingham city council,” he adds, “and are trying to get them on dumper-truck courses, fork-lift truck courses, basic bricklaying, electrics, plumbing, joinery, so they can get qualifications.”

Horsfield is currently building his fifth property for the homeless. (www.bcfc.com)

On Mondays Horsfield helps feed the homeless on Corporation Street in Birmingham and his ambition is to establish a central hub there. “I’ve got four houses, which is 25 beds altogether, and then this one, which will make it 30. My main aim, with the money we are raising and with Blues coming on board as well, is to try to get one of the big hubs. If we can get it cheap, or for a peppercorn rent, and we can get sponsorship or external funding to try to get it together, we can help people. People are going to drug-use and it’s better for them if I have a drug rehabilitation room where they could come in for clean needles instead of using dirty needles.”

He can cite one success story already in “a boxer called Ben Fields” who emailed him seeking help. “He was a heroin addict, alcoholic, homeless, for about 18 months. He went into supported accommodation, found a gym, found boxing, and has now won seven amateur fights and has just turned professional.”

Players from Birmingham City help serve food to the homeless as part of the Foundation's work. (www.bcfc.com)

Horsfield’s support for the underdog is no surprise given his own rags-to-riches tale as a striker who scored in all four divisions. He was a part-timer with Halifax Town until the month before his 25th birthday when Kevin Keegan took him to Fulham. “When I first signed, I had that non-league mentality,” he recalls. “We were playing away somewhere and I was rooming with Steve Finnan and it got to about half eleven at night and Finn said to me, ‘Are you hungry? Do you want room service?’. I looked down the menu and went, ‘I’ll have burger and chips and two Cokes’. He had a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich and a bottle of water. We didn’t know it went straight through to Kevin Keegan’s room so he got me in front of the lads and embarrassed me to death.

“He said, ‘I’ve got a non-league player who can go all the way to the top and he’s still eating burger and chips.’ And he went, ‘You’re fined a week’s wages’. Then he pulled me in the office and said, ‘Listen, you can go all the way to the top so eat properly, drink properly.” Keegan then returned the £500 fine money to Horsfield with the order to “get your missus something nice”.

Viv Solomon-Otabor and Pep Clotet much in to help renovate what will be the house's kitchen. (www.bcfc.com)

Horsfield went on to score for Birmingham in a Championship play-off final and in home and away wins over Aston Villa, though arguably his most memorable goal was West Brom’s first in the 2-0 victory over Portsmouth which completed the ‘great escape’ from relegation for a team who had been bottom at Christmas in 2004/05.

Horsfield, who would spend his summers on building sites in his native Barnsley, reveals he had spent the previous evening in his overalls. “I was buying properties and renovating them,” he explains. “It was ‘Survival Sunday’ so after training on the Saturday I went straight on the site and I knocked an internal wall down and was putting a steel girder in at ten that night as the plasterers were coming in on the Monday. It’s a good thing I were only sub really because I was a little bit tired but I managed to score a goal that kept us up!”

Horsfield hopes that the homes help those in need both physically and mentally. (www.bcfc.com)

Fittingly, tonight’s Championship fixture between Birmingham and West Brom is his foundation’s designated charity game. “They’re asking for people to bring toiletries and fill bins up which is another fantastic thing,” he says. “It’s not just about that, it’s about raising awareness of mental health and vulnerable adults – it’s a fine line between having a home and being homeless, it really is.”

For more information on the Geoff Horsfield Foundation follow @Geoff_Hors_Foun