Fresh from winning wide praise at the Cannes Film Festival, football star-turned-actor Cantona, and Loach were keen to end their week of promoting their new feature film, Looking For Eric, across the UK and Ireland, with a visit to a community-focused project. The project echoes the film's strong community themes and football's ability to unite fellow fans in a common purpose.

The Football Foundation hosted a special screening of Looking For Eric for some lucky young people at the Mile End Park sports facility, which was built with the help of a £1m grant from the Football Foundation and has massively helped to regenerate one of the most deprived areas of London.

The youngsters from Sir John Cass Sixth Form College and Bethnal Green United FC's youth team were then thrilled to get the chance to meet both Loach and Cantona and field questions after seeing the film. Both school and club are one of many hundreds of organisations that benefit from access to the high quality artificial pitches and changing facilities at the Mile End Park site every week.

The Football Foundation is the country's biggest sports charity, funded by the Premier League, The FA and Government. It provides grants towards rebuilding community sports facilities and also projects that use sport to help address some of society's key challenges like obesity and antisocial behaviour.

The Football Foundation's Junior Kit Scheme provides £400 worth of free kit and equipment to Under-18 school and club teams and Cantona and Loach also presented both Sir John Cass and Bethnal Green United FC youths with a full Junior Kit Scheme strip each.

Speaking at the Mile End Park facilities, Loach said: "I am delighted to be here at a Football Foundation facility. It is great that people like the Football Foundation exist to provide sports facilities for local people like this one."

When asked by one of the young people how he came to be an actor, Cantona said: "When I was a child I wanted to be a football player, I had this dream and I had a lot of passion for the game. But acting was always something I wanted to try. It is something I have now done for ten years and I really enjoy it.

"It was a wonderful opportunity to be able to work with Ken," he added.

Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: "It is a genuine honour to have Ken and Eric choose to visit a Football Foundation facility for the climax of their week of promoting their silver screen collaboration Looking For Eric.

"The film resonates with the Foundation in particular because it brilliantly conveys the passion that football can inspire and the loyalty that it can engender amongst fellow supporters and friends."