Newton Aycliffe Youth Football Club continue to support teams in Africa by sending them old strips from our teams and football boots from our players. The latest donation is to a team in Kenya, following on from a strip we donated at the end of last year to the same club. We are an FA Charter Standard Community Club and now our footballing community extends to Kenya.
Sunderland AFC Keroche, began in the village of Karai, on the outskirts of the town of Naivasha, Kenya in 2012. Karai village is a very poor area, where only 1 in 28 of the adults have a full-time job.
It all began as a way of trying to give the youth of the area a focus in life, to keep them away from life’s darker temptations such as drugs, crime and alcohol etc.
It started quite simply as a group of football loving young men forming a football team, but they had no kit, no boots, and no pitch, but they give themselves the name of Sunderland AFC Keroche for 2 reasons: (1) The then manager elect was a Sunderland fan, (2) The village sits in the shadow of the huge KEROCHE BREWERY (Kenya’s second largest brewery).
The boys played friendly games against other local villages, but soon realised that they were quite a good team and wanted to join a league. The then manager, Paul Kimani, approached a Sunderland fan Gary Lamb, (via Facebook) to ask if there was a possibility of trying to donate kits and boots etc. After checking out the team, and satisfied everything was genuine, Gary put out an appeal for shirts, plus boots, shorts and socks etc. and was overwhelmed by the response, So SUNDERLAND AFC KEROCHE, the school and their village of Karai, became a whole new place. As well as the senior team the club has 4 junior sections providing football for all ages. If you want more information why don’t you follow them on Facebook – sunderlandafckeroche