The People's View: Bellevue FC's story

As part of our More Than A Game celebration, find out about how one inclusive grassroots club in Wales is providing opportunities for people from all backgrounds

'The People's View' series from the Premier League celebrates football at all levels.

We'll hear first-hand experiences of life across football, including from those who benefit from the League’s funded programmes.

This is the game we all love, and these are views from the community.

At the top of Bellevue FC's website, Delwyn Derrick explains the ethos behind an extraordinary club that he founded in north Wales nine years ago.

"The story of Bellevue should always be about the players who come to our club. I have been privileged to work with inspirational people with incredible stories, I've been incredibly lucky to call some of those people my closest friends and humbled to stand as an equal with some who have become my personal heroes."

Bellevue FC is a fully inclusive and award-winning football club in Wrexham that since 2016 has provided football opportunities to those who have barriers accessing the sport.

"I started the club with a group of mates, several of whom were foreign, whether economic migration, educational migration, or the asylum process - it just happened that way so why not run with it," Delwyn says.

"It doesn't so much bring something to Wrexham, it brings from Wrexham. We named ourselves after a park. When people are moving here in the asylum process, or for economic migration, they find the town centre first.

"Bellevue Park was the last football pitch in the town centre. They find us more than we find them."

The club is a welcoming and safe community for all ethnicities and backgrounds, those who are socially or economically disadvantaged, refugees, asylum seekers and players with disabilities.

"We've got a Ukrainian refugee with us," Delwyn says. "Having somewhere he can come and make friends and pursue the sport he loves - it's important for him, important for us, to feel part of something bigger than just himself, a community within a community."

One family that has felt the support and fellowship of Bellevue FC are the Mbayas from Zimbabwe.

Clive Mbaya is the father to striker Tavonga, who has been playing in Wrexham since he was around four-years-old.

"It's a brilliant team here, they play as brothers and we share the same values," says Clive, who works in social care. "It's really helped us grow as a team and get to know his many friends he has made here.

"As a parent you feel you feel wonderful, especially when he’s scoring goals. Coming to watch the matches is good, you get involved with other parents, what's going on around the town. It’s a community, I come with my wife, my brother is here.

"The club has brought us together. It's made us feel welcome, if I'm walking in Wrexham we see friends from here to have bonds with, and it has accepted us."

Tavonga joined Bellevue FC when it first started and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was a professional footballer back in Zimbabwe.

"I like playing for this team, I came on its first day ever," he says. "I want to play for Wrexham.

"There's a picture of my granddad's team and him. I didn’t see him play. My mum and dad tease me saying, 'this guy's better than you!'

"Then I get to prove them wrong and it's good. I like scoring goals, if it's one I'm calm, two a little celebration, a hat-trick a full celebration!"

Bellevue FC's roots are well and truly established in Wrexham, with the idea for the club having been forward by Derek and his friends while sitting underneath a curved tree behind one of the goals in the park.

And now Delwyn hopes that the club's values of inclusivity and unity will be the foundation of all other clubs across the country.

"Our success would be if every other club was doing what we did, in Wales or Wrexham," he says. “We wouldn't have to be special because it would just be the normal.

"As long as there's a reason why we have to be here, I'm going to continue turning up."

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