A Blackburn Rovers team made up of refugees, asylum seekers and the homeless took on a team from Crewe Alexandra as part of an inclusive football match.

The match was part of Blackburn Rovers and Blackburn Rovers Community Trust’s commitment to the EFL Week of Action.

The game was organised by inclusion manager at Blackburn Rovers Community Trust, Ilyas Patel, and the community manager at Crewe Alexandra in the Community, Ray Walker, and aimed to raise awareness of the important issues of homelessness.

Ilyas said: “We run a session every Friday night for the lads in Blackburn with Darwen.

"It’s open to anybody who loves to play football. It’s been funded by the Council until recently and now we’ve got extra sponsors from Utilita, ARC and Blackburn Rovers Community Trust, who have supported us as well.

“We started in March this year and it coincided with Ramadan starting, and one thing we didn’t want to do was stop playing football on a Friday night.

"We decided as a group that we could still play football but go into one of the rooms and we opened our fast together, so we provided food and water and it was good to share that time together as most of the the lads live alone so would have opened their fast on their own."

Ray added: “I contacted Ilyas not long ago regarding his inclusion football sessions, knowing he had quite a few sessions going on and we just started ours six to eight months ago so it offered a good opportunity to get together.

“Blackburn being a very diverse community and Crewe being similar in a different way, we were looking forward to having a game.

 “We are very proud and we’ve got a good community spirit. 

"We just provide the infrastructure and there’s local charities involved in our charities, the Wishing Well, Chance, YMCA and the club, so hopefully we can provide more opportunities for the team going forward with Blackburn Rovers and other clubs.”

Cheering on the players was Blackburn Rovers 1994-95 Premier League winner Mark Atkins, who watched on from the sidelines. 

He said: “Being an ex-player and playing when we won the Premier League, it’s great to still be involved with the club and support it in whichever way you can.

"I’ve been to Remember the Rovers but this is a different set-up altogether, it’s fantastic to see people playing football, wherever you’ve come from and whatever you do.

“We have had the Football Aid in the Community and I’ve been involved with it in the last few years, so it’s great.

“Blackburn Rovers Community Trust do fantastic things. They’ve taken some of the Remember the Rovers group to away games so to get everybody together to play these football games is fantastic.

“Blackburn has always been a community-based football club, even when I was playing here, and they are doing a massive thing, and such a great job.

“It’s a community cub and that’s what matters most.

“People can come down here on a Friday night, have a game of football and get looked after, that’s the main thing, there’s a lot of lonely people about, and this is the place you could come.”