SportInspired Origins

Our journey began in 2004 when founder and now CEO, Richard Raynes, helped to start a children’s rugby club in Hackney, London after he noticed that many young people believed that there was nothing to do locally, often turning to destructive activities instead. Within two years Richard was amazed at the positive impact the club had and decided to go further.

In 2008, following consultation with the local people of Hackney and with the help of university friend Peter Thomond, and investment from UBS as part of their wider community work in Hackney, “SportInspired, Hackney” was created. This amazing multi-sports festival gave  children access to sport that they had never had before and set the stage for incredible expansion (and impact!) over the next 10 years across the whole of the UK.

Before the Pandemic Struck

Since that festival in a field back in 2008, and before 2020, we worked with 35 further partner organisations (including schools, sports clubs, businesses and local authorities), delivering 350 programmes to 75,000+ children across the UK.  

The festivals that took place in that period look and feel very similar to how they did in 2008, and were still centred on the same fundamental insight Rich and Pete uncovered in those first games 12 years prior; that there is incredible value in using sports as a vehicle to bring local businesses, residents, local authorities, schools and sports clubs together to make a big, positive, difference to the lives of younger people in deprived communities.

And then it all changed. The Covid Pandemic hit us and of course our communities hard. Our work was naturally inhibited by lockdowns at the very time when the communities needed activity most. Like so many others, we were forced into innovating with virtual concepts to varying degrees of success but all they really did was to shine a light on just how valuable in-person festivals were. 


Our ability to deliver to our communities was compromised, and so was our ability to raise funds as we entered a difficult economic period, which we are still of course dealing with today with the cost of living crisis.

In turn, the cost of living crisis has hit our communities, with many parents being forced to choose between providing food for their family and paying for sporting activities. And to make the storm even more perfect, many sports clubs have struggled through the winter of 2022/23 due to the spiralling cost of energy required to support indoor facilities.

The need for what we do has never been greater. In response to this, Sport England the body responsible for activity levels in the UK said “it intended to work within local communities to ensure initiatives were delivered through providers that were recognised and trusted in that community, because not everyone trusted a top-down programme from central government”

This is where we come in. We work with Sport England AND we work with local partners because we are trusted and we provide ongoing programmes that actually get kids active.

Post Pandemic

So, in the summer term of 2022, after a difficult two years where our ability to deliver festivals was compromised both by lockdown and then by reduced funding, we were back in earnest with 15 festivals in just 2 months.

And now, in 2023 we are continuing to develop and improve our programmes and our main focus is on:

  • Multi-Sport Festivals – where we host single day multi-sports events
  • Young Leader programmes – where 12-18 year olds are trained to support younger children in multi-sport festivals
  • Leaders of Fun – where we empower older primary school children to create fun activities for younger primary school children at break time/lunch time
  • Legacy Sports Clubs – where we provide after school clubs based on the sports that children have tried at our festival

We are proud of what we’ve done so far, both pre and post the pandemic but there is so much more to do. We are fully committed to continuing our work in the communities that need us, on a sustainable basis to provide opportunities that can in turn transform those communities.

Bring on the next 10 years!

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