New police recruits in Afghanistan have received a sporting boost after West Midlands Police Football Club kindly donated one of their kits to them.
The kit was taken out to Afghanistan by the Queen’s Royal Hussars (QRH) army regiment who WMPFC have had a long standing friendship with for over 50 years.
Each year, the WMPFC meet QRH and play football for the Challenge Trophy on Remembrance Sunday weekend. One match takes place at the barracks in Paderborn, Germany and the other at the Tally Ho! police training facility in Birmingham.
Knowing that the QRH were due for a nine month tour of duty in Afghanistan starting in October 2011, WMPFC asked if they could take with them one of the team’s kits to donate to either a local village team or the Afghan police or army.
The QRH duly obliged and took the kit out to their base in Lashkah Gar, the first province within Helmand to have authority for security handed over to the Afghan Security Force (ANSF).
The QRH donated the force’s kit to a group of local people who had graduated from the local police training centre. The group had just completed 12 weeks of training and will now be responsible for policing within Lashkah Gar District Centre. They will operate in one of the most dangerous places in the world which has seen three suicide attacks in the last three months as well as numerous Small Arms Fire Attacks (SAF).
During the training programme, new police recruits are encouraged to take part in sports in order to build their team spirit. Unfortunately they do not get to play as often as they would like (they are normally too busy at work and don’t get to work normal shift patterns) but when they do, the games are very competitive.
Lt Mohammed Khan said: “I would like to thank West Midlands Police very much for their very kind donation of this football kit to our team, I will ensure it is put to good use. We do not get to play as much football as I would like but having this kit means that when we do it will be that little bit more special.”
