“Football is such a great example of how inclusive environments can work.”

It’s the sport that’s been at the centre of David Rainford’s life since he was a young child - from playing at professional and non-league levels, to teaching academy footballers in the classroom and now working for the Premier League.

Football’s ability to unite people from a diverse range of backgrounds has inspired David to bring his experience gained in both education and football to his roles as chair of Kent FA’s Equality Advisory Group (EAG) and independent non-executive director on the Kent FA Board.

His career journey has been unique - juggling professional-level football with a full-time teaching career and achieving success in both.

He was recruited into West Ham United’s Centre of Excellence as a ten-year-old and progressed through the club’s academy before moving to Colchester United aged 16, and going on loan to Scarborough three years later to aid his development.

“That was my early reception from being a young player, loving it at grassroots level, moving into a talent pathway experience and becoming a young professional,” he recalls.

Like many teenagers vying to become professional footballers, David was released by Colchester United and went on to play in the Conference, now called the National League, for Slough Town.

“I remember my mother particularly saying ‘well, if you're not a full-time professional, you should continue with your education’, so I enrolled at university at the age of 20.

“It was a wonderful time, as I managed to play a really good standard of football - one tier away from the professional leagues - while also doing a sports development degree.

“I got my degree and then took a teacher training course and started as a PE teacher, initially in East London.”

David worked at a specialist sports college and part of his role involved teaching sports science and sports development programmes to 17 and 18-year-old players at Tottenham Hotspur’s academy.

“I look back on that time really fondly as it felt hectic, but it was a nice combination of things that I had a lot of commitment to.”

His playing career then took him to the likes of Grays Athletic and Bishop’s Stortford, before signing for Dagenham and Redbridge in his mid-20s, where his team won the Conference to gain promotion into League Two.

“That was wonderful because I’d had a handful of appearances in the Football League as a 20-year-old, for Scarborough and Colchester United, but I went back in at 26, which is rare - as that’s quite old to go back into the professional ranks.”

Due to his full-time teaching commitments, David wasn’t sure whether he could juggle playing at a higher level.

“I remember us winning the league and having all the celebrations, as it was the first time Dagenham had been promoted that high up.

“But in the back of my mind I was thinking ‘I might not be able to experience this in the League’.”

Fortunately, David’s manager, John Still, who has also managed Maidstone United and Luton Town, was understanding and provided the flexibility for him to stay.

“I was in a really privileged position, playing football at a professional level but still holding my teaching position.

“The people around me enabled me to do that, as we had to adapt some of the training times for me.”

Aged 30, David became head of department at his school and made the tough decision to step back down into non-league football, where he continued playing for another five years with Chelmsford City alongside teaching.

He then joined the Premier League, which governs youth football development in the country.

As Head of Education and Academy Player Care, he helps to shape standards for young players’ experiences, including their education, support mechanisms and transitions into, and in some cases out of, the professional football system.

David also decided to use his experience to “give back” to football, by joining Kent FA last year.

“One of the key focuses in my role at the Premier League in the last few years has been on supporting access for British South Asian boys, as we’ve got an under-representation of British South Asian players within the system. 

“Part of my work was to evaluate why, look at research and put some actions in place to improve those pathways.

“It's a really important EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) initiative that the Premier League has had a huge focus on, and being part of the team leading on that really opened up my mind to inclusion and how, at some point, everyone's got a characteristic that is impacted.

“Football is such a great example of how inclusive environments can work. 

“With the representation of people from all sorts of backgrounds, it’s a game that literally everyone can play.

“I look about back to my Dagenham team - as I had really close connections with that group because we had such success - and our squad: I'm of mixed Jamaican and British heritage, our captain was mixed heritage Bangladeshi and British - we just had such a wonderful blend of people and football brought us together.

“So with the expertise I’d built up over time in the Premier League, the opportunity to join the Kent FA board and become EAG chair was something I was really interested in and I applied and went through an interview process.

“That validated to me that inclusion needs to be at the heart of the leadership of an organisation, and to have the Kent FA CEO and various board members do a really thorough process showed me that Kent FA is really serious about making sure that football in the county is representative of the communities it serves.

“Since joining the board and seeing the ambitions of Kent FA, I feel I can contribute to that and use some of the expertise I've gathered during my career.”

As a Kent FA board member, David has joined representatives from a range of different professional and footballing backgrounds to provide advice and guidance on Kent FA’s direction, objectives and strategy, while also chairing the Equality Advisory Group (EAG).

“The EAG is a group of wonderful people who have all got different perspectives, different backgrounds and different understandings of the Kent football landscape.

“We've got two young members who are bringing that youth voice, we’ve got a player from Dartford Women, one member is a pathway activity manager at Active Kent and Medway who leads on health and EDI, and another is a primary school teacher and EDI officer for the East Kent Youth Football League.

“There’s a real variety of perspectives, and I chair that group with the purpose of helping to steer the County FA on areas they can improve on and develop around diversity, equality and inclusion. 

“It's a sounding board where we can question ‘would this be impactful for the community?’, ‘is this right?’ - the group can hold a mirror up to say ‘that’s something we think can have an impact’ or ‘that might not be something to spend time and energy on’.

“Kent is a huge county with a really diverse range of people and there’s some really great work going on, but there are also great ambitions to push on again - whether that’s facility development, growing teams or providing accessibility for different groups.

“My role on the board is to ensure that EDI is at the centre of the board’s thought processes in everything they’re doing.”

Kent FA’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan is being launched next month, which the EAG has supported the Kent FA team in developing, and it provides a road map setting out how EDI objectives can be met.

The plan covers areas including the organisational set up of Kent FA, participation targets and strategies for attracting volunteers from diverse backgrounds.

“It’s a four-year plan, so we can look incrementally at where we’re at with targets and ambitions.

“There’s already some great work going on, so it’s about progressing EDI across the county, and I think Kent FA can be held up as a shining light of a County FA in the wider regional work of the Football Association.”

Engaging with Kent communities that are not fully aware of the football opportunities available to them is one of the key challenges, as well as consciously growing the women’s game in a sustainable manner and using a range of effective communication methods to ensure opportunities and messages are shared with different groups - for example those who don’t use social media.

For David personally, he feels he will gain just as much reward from working with Kent FA as the board and EAG are acquiring from his knowledge and insight.

“It's purpose-driven work that's always been something that matters to me, whether that’s been through teaching young people or ensuring effective governance.

“I'm a living example of how wonderful football can be in different aspects of people's lives and opening that up to more people has been a real driver to me in why I want to do this role.

“I'm confident we'll be able to see the distance travelled from the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan and the impact of the work and that's what I'm getting out of it - to be able to say that we started here, from a position of strength, but we've taken it to here.

“Being part of that is what I’m getting back and some of the great ideas that come out of it will help stimulate ideas in my own career as well, to take back to my work at the Premier League.”