The origin’s of the song grew from the Black Lives Matter movement in America, with a desire to create “a community for racial healing, justice, solidarity and Joy”.
Adio, who had previously collaborated with MILCK on 2017’s ‘If I ruled the world’, is based in LA though grew up in Manchester and is a childhood friend of CITC’s Community Outreach Manager Martin Ingham-Griffith.
Martin and Adio have a friendship going back many years, when they played football as children with Adio’s brother David. However, their friendship was marked by tragedy when a mutual friend, Halton McCollin, was shockingly shot down in January 2008 in Old Trafford as an innocent bystander in an escalating gangland dispute.
Martin highlights the months after this as the time in his life where he first developed his ambition to pursue a career in community sports and to give young people a safe space to enjoy the benefits sport can offer.
Though Adio is now an incredibly successful LA based recording artist, having grown up in Parrs Wood as a keen youth footballer, he wanted to identify a Manchester based charity that championed young people through football to support via the Somebody’s Beloved project. Adio contacted Martin for suggestions on possible causes.
CITC’s Kicks is an outreach programme providing free evening, weekend and school holiday provision. Through mentoring and open-access football sessions, Kicks delivers 6 days a week, 48 weeks a year, addressing the lack of opportunity for young people living in areas of social deprivation whilst providing positive activities in communities where there is a gap in youth provision.
The Kicks Sessions at Platt Lane, Manchester City’s previous training ground are also partnered and supported by Families Against Violence.
Families Against Violence support young people, families and communities who have gone through tragic and violent experiences. Founder James Gregory, who lost his own son Giuseppe Gregory to violence in Manchester, directly contributes to Kicks sessions at Platt Lane, offering the support and guidance of his organisation to participants.
Halton McCollin Sr, the father of Adio and Martin’s departed friend, is also involved with Families Against Violence in supporting other victims in community.
The Platt Lane sessions run weekly throughout the year. Funds raised through ‘Somebody’s Beloved’ will help to sustain this project, enabling CITC to continue providing sessions to participants well into the future.
Martin added:
It’s really important to be able to continue to bring this sort of provision through football into our communities in Manchester, and for young people to have that consistency.
The funding from this program will allow us to continue that support consistency, to pay for the pitch fees and all of the costs that make a project like this possible for years to come, giving the young people of communities in Fallowfield, Moss Side and Rusholme, and all the young people involved in the project somewhere to come on Friday night.
There they can receive that support from ourselves, to receive that support from the staff at Families Against Violence, and have a safe space where young people can come and enjoy playing football.
I’d like to say congratulations to Adio and MILCK on an amazing song, that really does highlight some of the key themes we’re looking to address through our programmes, and to thank them for supporting Kicks.
Downloads will actively contribute to local community, as well as charities all over the world who do similar work.
The history of Manchester is music and football working in synergy to create opportunities for support for young people. I know that our supporters everywhere will love the song and I hope they support us it by downloading and purchasing a copy.
Support Us!
All streams and downloads of ‘Somebody’s Beloved’ will support CITC’s Kicks programme in Fallowfield, alongside 11 charities around the world who support similar activities and objectives.
You can enjoy the song below, though to find out more about ‘Somebody’s Beloved’, as well as the hugely talented Adio aka Bipolar Sunshine and MILCK, and to support directly please visit the official website.
