Marcus Gayle Kicks Off Brentford FC’s Support For Football Rebooted Campaign

Former Bees striker and Club Ambassador Marcus Gayle has officially kicked off Brentford FC’s efforts to collect and reallocate good quality football boots, as part of Utilita Energy’s Football Rebooted campaign.

Already being dubbed as ‘football’s biggest ever environmental movement’, Brentford FC is one of the first Premier League club partners to join the Football Rebooted campaign, which was launched by David James MBE and Utilita Energy in a bid to save families the expense of new boots - and to keep one million pairs of football boots out of landfill.

Brentford FC’s dedicated boots collection point is situated at the Bees Superstore on Lionel Road South, for football boots suitable for all surfaces, which will help the club’s ongoing sustainability efforts. Anyone with a spare pair of football boots (or Astro turf boots) who wants to get involved should simply give them a clean and drop them off at the superstore before the match.

To put the environmental benefits into context, every pair of football boots manufactured creates a carbon footprint of 30lbs - the same amount of carbon generated by a medium-sized house’s weekly energy usage.[1]

Marcus Gayle, former striker and Brentford FC Club Ambassador comments on the why he’s getting behind the campaign: “There will be plenty of brand-new football boots which have been received as Christmas presents across London right now, so this is a call for all of those boots they have replaced.

“We know our fans will get behind the campaign - there’ll be lots of families looking for a new home for their pre-played boots, and plenty of families who would love to receive them. Your donations will not only help those young footballers in the area, but you will also be doing your bit for the environment too.”

As well as football clubs, hundreds of primary and secondary schools and colleges across the UK are already collecting boots and keeping them in the local eco-system to ensure they’re re-used.

After an impressive kick-off back in May 2021, the successful ‘Football Rebooted’ campaign has already collected and reallocated thousands of pairs of quality football boots, saving hard-pressed families a small fortune and helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Archie Lasseter, Utilita Energy’s Sustainability Lead comments on the environmental impact of rehoming boots: “By giving people the information and infrastructure to do the right thing, this campaign is adding multiple layers of value to people and the planet. We intent to get as many collection points as possible into clubs and schools across the UK in order to hit the million pairs target.

“Brentford FC is already taking steps in the right direction when it comes to making positive decisions for the environment, which is great to see, and I hope other clubs follow suit.”

James Parkinson, Brentford FC, Commercial Director said: “This is an important initiative for us. We are working hard across our activities in the new stadium, at the Training Ground and with our partners, to make positive decisions which help to make us more sustainable. We’d encourage all of our fans who have a spare pair of boots to donate to drop them off at the Bees Superstore to help make a difference.”

The campaign also invites anyone with spare football boots or Astro boots to request a freepost ‘boot bag’ to donate their boots, after which their boots will be reallocated via one of nine Utilita Energy Hubs, for free. Premium pairs of the ‘most wanted’ retro boots and former and current players’ boots and other items will also be in the mix, giving anyone a chance to come along and grab a pair to be proud of.

The campaign has been set up to get good boots through to families struggling to afford new ones, after Utilita’s State of Play report revealed that out of the 74% of families who had been impacted financially by the pandemic, 18% won’t be able to send their kids back to grassroots football as they can’t afford boots and other items such as goalie gloves and shin pads.[2]

Utilita’s regularly referenced State of Play report has been integral to the recent conclusion of the House of Lords Select Committee’s National Plan for Sport and Recreation, which has revealed that participation in sport is flatlining in the UK. The report has called for a new Minister of Sport to be positioned within the Department of Health to deliver a new national plan for sport, health and wellbeing to improve access and participation.[3]

Former England goalkeeper, environmentalist and campaign ambassador, David James, and the Utilita team held focus groups with families, which revealed the barriers to boots finding new homes – the biggest being pride. The donate and claim mechanic avoids families needing to accept charity from people they know, and makes claiming a new pair an aspirational activity, whereby people are impacting the environment, too.

Campaign ambassador, David James MBE, comments on why the campaign is so important:

“Right now, there are millions of pairs of football boots that people have grown out of or replaced, and we need to make sure they don’t end up in landfill. It’s great to see The Bees getting behind the Utilita Football Rebooted campaign and ensuring good quality boots get played again. The campaign promotes an important reminder about the power of upcycling and reusing items that still have a lot of life left in them.”

Watch David James launch the Football Rebooted collection points at his former secondary school below:

As part of the new campaign, education institutions, community centres and sporting clubs can request boots be sent to them for children who they identify as needing football boots to enable them to play in or outside of school.

Find out more information about the campaign at www.footballrebooted.co.uk. Education partners, community centres and clubs can order their free pack here.

Former Bees striker Marcus Gayle calls for locals to bring along their unused football boots as the club gets behind Utilita’s ‘Football Rebooted’ campaign to save one million pairs of boots from landfill.

[1] Cars of the road calculation:

30 lbs of carbon per pair of running shoes (source)

1 million pairs of boots rehomed = 30,000,000 lbs carbon

30,000,000 / 2200 (lbs to tonne) = 13,636 tonnes of carbon

2900 kWh for average electricity consumption per home*

0.23314 kgs is the amount of carbon emissions generated by one KWh of energy**

2900 divided by 365 = 7.94 kWh/day

7.94 multiplied by 0.23314 = 1.85 kgCO₂e / day

13.6kgsCO₂ divided by 1.85 = 7.35 days of electricity consumption per pair of boots rehomed.

*https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/gas/retail-market/monitoring-data-and-statistics/typical-domestic-consumption-values

**https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2020

[2] https://utilita.co.uk/downloads/switch-before-pitch/SB4P_State-of-Play-Report.pdf

[3] House of Lords Select Committee’s National Plan for Sport and Recreation - see p15 / point 19