The campaign, which launched during last year’s Black History Month, is our continued commitment to championing Black trailblazers from the Chelsea community all year round.

To celebrate the role of coaching in making history, Chelsea Foundation will be highlighting Honor and Tyrone’s contributions throughout their journeys supporting the young people they empower on a daily basis.

Here, we ask them some questions…

Why do you think a campaign like Making History Everyday is important for a club like Chelsea to do?

Honor
It’s important for everyone to see that it's not just the people on the pitch that we celebrate every day, there's also everyone behind the scenes that does phenomenal work within the wider community. Chelsea is everywhere and is probably the biggest club in history.

It just celebrates all the work that we do – I don't think many people realise the capacity and the reach that we have. I'm not celebrating me right now, I'm celebrating the younger people I work with through me. It's about them being able to see someone of colour, just like them, that can make it if you put the hard work in. It's a big responsibility, but it's a responsibility I'll take on any day.

Tyrone
For me, the campaign is important because Chelsea being the club it is, with a very multicultural, diverse community that it's in amongst, there have been issues around not enough diversity in football, and there have been some negative conversations. But I think Chelsea is doing its utmost to spread a positive message around people from the Black community making history every day and highlighting the influence they have.

Like Honor said, there's so much more than the people that are on the pitch: from the people in the stadium, people that work around the club, and people like myself and Honor who are actually working in the community. And as Honor said again, there are so many people in the community that don't realise what Chelsea do.

The No To Hate campaign has been here for a number of years and they celebrate Black History Month. But now this campaign, Making History Everyday, is actually celebrating that throughout the year. That's not just in a tokenistic part of doing it for October, and we forget about it for the next year – we are actually celebrating people all year round that add to the community and influence the young people that are the next generation.

Honor
If you spoke to a young person that loves football and asked them what they want to do, they'll just say they want to be a footballer. But now as time is progressing, and there's so many things that we're highlighting, there's so many different career paths that they can take and still have their passion within sport, which is the biggest thing that we're able to show and highlight through this campaign.

Thinking about all of the history makers who have paved the way across society from the Black community, who has been your biggest inspiration and why?

Tyrone
Initially, it is my family. My family are originally from the Caribbean. For them to successfully set up a life in a foreign country whilst raising and supporting me and my sisters is something that inspires me. So anything I do working at Chelsea and beyond, hopefully, I'm making those guys proud, and I'm making my little difference to the young people I work with. Everything I do with Chelsea, whether it's classroom stuff or it's coaching on the field, I'm hoping just to have a little impact and inspire other people.

Honor
I don't have a set answer, simply because every single person that I interact with will inspire me in some capacity because they've got a journey. They've paved their own way, they've got their own story that should be highlighted. The people that I generally work with day to day, who are people I actually consider like family, are probably my biggest inspirations because they are older than me, they look after me, they've guided me within my own role to help and to make me be the best person that I can be. To me they're the biggest part of my life and within my world.

For a football example, I'd have to say two. Eni Aluko would be one of them. I did a campaign with her promoting women in sport. Once she finished her football career, and she released her book, there was a lot of work around everything that she was doing to empower women. Doing the workshops with her were phenomenal – she's really, really powerful. Both on and off the pitch, she's carried her story and made sure that she impacts a lot of people.

The one person that probably got me into football was Rachel Yankee. I know she's predominantly Arsenal, and that's the only painful bit to say, but she's been an absolutely amazing, phenomenal player throughout her whole history. The way that she looks after people and even her own community, that stuck with me a lot that she was able to give back. It's not just the impact you have in 90 minutes on the pitch, or the leadership that you bring. She always managed to tie it back to when she where she grew up and the people that were there with her, and give back to the younger people so they had an easier path to get into doing what they're passionate about.

What does it mean to you personally to be chosen as a history maker?

Honor
It’s definitely an honour. It's a privilege. There's still much more I can do. I wouldn't say I've made history just yet, but to be recognised by the club I've been with for the majority of my life is a credit to all the work that we do collectively, because it's not just about me.

I've always been someone that's wanted to give back to my community. Being able to have a platform like this has allowed me to do that. To support so many young people on a daily basis is the biggest reward, so it's definitely a privilege. But I don't do it for myself, I do it for them and everyone that I encounter. So this is for all of them.

Tyrone
I find it's kind of strange to be called a history maker and have that title because I feel young-ish, and that I've still got a lot more to do and a lot more to give. It’s an honour to be recognised and congratulated for the work you have been doing, or what you do in your community. It's something I'll probably look back when I'm at retirement age, and think about the influence and difference I’ve made to those people.

It’s great to work with so many young people and teachers as well. Sometimes you don't hear about your influence or you don't often see it until much later. There have been some examples where I think I have done a good job, and you don’t really think of it at the time because you want to do a good job every day. You tend to hear about it later when someone comes back and says, remember this. A teacher I've worked with previously was singing my praises, and it was like: wow, I didn't realise I had that much of an effect. It's good to hear.

What would you say that your greatest achievement has been?

Honor
It would probably be the actual job that I do. Being a Chelsea Champion is all about supporting young people's emotional wellbeing, resilience, mental health, self-esteem and confidence. Being in the job now for six years, it's the most rewarding thing and helped me to find a proper purpose and drive. All the children and young people that I work with are the biggest inspiration, that I have to get up every day to support them. It's great to see people that used to be school refusers now coming in every single day; those that hated to speak up now stand in front of a whole assembly hall and speak their truth; people that are confident in everything and want to be real ambassadors to give back. I feel the work that I'm doing is giving them a little bit of me, so that they're able to pay pass on what I've taught them so that we're just constantly helping the next generations.

Tyrone
One of the highlights is we’ve coached a number of players that we are still I contact with. So someone that was maybe 13 when I started coaching them, they're a young adult now; I still see them as a 13-year-old, but as I get older, they're getting older as well. I've got a number of people who still talk to us or reach out to me. That's a highlight – I try and have a relationship with all the people I coach, and hope I've got enough respect that people can still tap into me. The highlight is having a positive influence on people.

What's your standout memory from your time coaching?

Honor
I used to do a lot of coaching for the under-fives, so it was just giving them that sense of passion within sport and finding their voice and their ability. That was probably where I learned patience. Everything that I do on a day-to-day resides around a lot of patience. They just give you the opportunity to have fun. Yes, football's competitive, yes, it's all about the final scoreline; but it's also about playing the game. There are tactics, there are times where you do have to be patient within yourself and within your team. It gives you a wider sense of what the game actually is.

Like Tyrone said, also building that connection, and kind of letting them know that no matter what, good or bad, we're still going to be there. We're not expecting them to get things right every single day and there are going to be different trials and tribulations. But we're here, we're strapped in for the journey. You've got a story to say, and you've got a voice.

How do you think coaches can have a positive impact both on their teams, their players, and also in the wider community?

Tyrone
We use the term coaching with football and sports, but actually we're trying to just build young people up. As the older person, we have a bit more experience to show them the way and give them experiences we didn't necessarily have, helping to make them better, more well-rounded people. We teach teamwork and working with others, respecting others. Showing if you don't always win, that's not the be all and end all. Just giving them a head start on their journey.

Honor
We have a lot of responsibility with the young people we work with. We're there on a day-to-day basis and probably spend six hours minimum per day guiding them, coaching them, supporting them, advising them; ultimately just being their biggest ambassador, their biggest advocate, their biggest cheerleader. Having that patience and being able to let them know that mistakes are okay as long as we learn from them.

What do you think the role of coaching is in making history?

Honor
It's something that makes an impact on people's every day, it's not just a one-off experience, it's not just a 90-minute performance. It is something that will carry them through. Like Tyrone said before, there are young people that we will work with that we're not going to see the actual impact until later on in life. We may never even know it, but they will always refer to the time they spent with Tyrone and myself, how it impacted them, how we gave them support and that level of respect, commitment, confidence and self-belief to give them the drive to achieve anything.

Tyrone
It's leaving your environment and making it better than when you first got there. Adding something to it that people can build from in the future. When you work with young people, you're there to pick them back up and say none of us are perfect. We will make the mistakes and then build from there. So coaching makes history through being that cheerleader; a person that keeps pushing someone on.