Students at a city school are taking a renewed interest in football after finding out their mentor is a soccer star who is hoping to cause an FA Cup upset this weekend.
On Saturday, Hamza Bencherif will be joining his teammates at non-league side Guiseley on the pitch at AFC Wimbledon in the hope of starting the club’s journey to Wembley.
It’s a far cry from Hamza’s day job – working with children who have been excluded from mainstream education at Kingsmead School’s Pupil Referral Unit, in Bridge Street, where he works as a behaviour specialist.
On Saturday, Hamza Bencherif will be joining his teammates at non-league side Guiseley on the pitch at AFC Wimbledon in the hope of starting the club’s journey to Wembley.
The 33-year-old, who was born in Paris, has worked at the school since March 2020 after leaving fulltime professional football just a few months earlier.
Hamza’s football career saw him lift two FA Trophy cups at Wembley Stadium in front of 40,000 fans – with York City and Halifax Town – as well as making seven appearances for the Algerian under-20s national side.
Now he is getting his kicks from helping children at the school stay engaged with learning and helping them to find what it is that drives them, in the same way that football motivated him to strive for success.
He said: “I know it sounds as if growing up in Paris and being a professional footballer was a really glamorous life, but it’s not without its challenges. With football there is a lot of pressure – from fans, with abuse, but you have to learn strategies.
“I did some mentoring work with younger players and when I stopped playing, I decided to take it a little bit further. It felt completely natural to me and the enjoyment of seeing the progress some of the pupils make is just brilliant and incredibly rewarding.
“We do use sport as a tool, but you have to find the thing that motivates them; whether that’s movies, clothes, even helping them with coping strategies.
“When I was their age football motivated me and I want them to discover what drives them. They might not find it until they are 30 or 40 but they need to be clear and stay focussed, it’s very easy to be distracted.”
At Guiseley, Hamza is one of the most experienced players and he’s a voice of experience for some of the younger players on the team.
That understanding has certainly helped him with some of the teenagers at Kingsmead, who have done their own research on their mentor and were especially impressed to discover he was featured on the video games Fifa and Football Manager.
Hamza, who is dad to Zara and three-month-old Nora, added: “They were amazed to find me on things like Fifa and they couldn’t get their heads around the fact that I wanted to work with them – they kept asking ‘what are you doing here?’
“They are quite excited about the match and at one point we were hoping it would be live on the TV. It will be available on the red button we think and definitely on the highlights, so it will be nice for some of the students to see that.
“They see that I like to do this job and that I made the decision to be here. It’s a tough gig and certainly not for everyone. It’s not easy every day and can be quite high intensity, but I love it.
“I have spent 20 years in football but for now it’s time for something else. This is definitely a challenge and right now I am thoroughly enjoying it.”
