Michael Green, a.k.a. Pickle, semi-professional rugby player for Nottingham and
3Pillars Project coach, dropped us a line to speak about ‘the privilege to be involved with the Charity 3Pillars…’Â
"I have had the privilege to be involved with the charity 3Pillars officially since September 2023. I am a current rugby player at Nottingham Rugby and I first got involved with the 3PP team delivering sessions in prisons to young offenders and coaching rugby at a school every Wednesday in Sneinton, which is one of Nottingham's most deprived areas.Â
The kids I was coaching had been targeted as at risk children who have been potentially exposed to anti social behaviour/criminal activity. As rugby is my passion the sessions were mainly rugby focused and the majority of these kids had never seen a rugby ball so for me it was powerful to see them giving it a go, there was no better feeling than seeing them score tries and compete against each other in a fun environment.Â
These types of children have not had the easiest of childhoods which obviously comes with its challenges in terms of coaching. The first few sessions were tough trying to figure out what made these kids tick and what would work and wouldn't work in terms of keeping them engaged. Towards the end of the coaching block the relationships we built with the kids felt genuine and I would like to think that each and everyone one of them got something positive out of it.Â
I am now based at the 3PP headquarters at the Wildcats Basketball Arena every Wednesday where we run our after school Community Project for the kids in the area. We started off with 10 kids attending and we have had 30 come through the door at one point which was a real buzz. The kids here are basketball fanatics so we mainly incorporate a lot of basketball but I have introduced rugby and football throughout sessions as focusing on team building activities.
Working with 3PP has been very fulfilling and I truly feel we are making a difference in some of these kids' lives, whether small or big, it is important to me to do anything to help."