Inspirational 12-year-old Hucknall football coach honoured with young leader award

Hucknall Warriors player Zeko Smith is a 12-year-old like no other.

He dedicates hours of his time every week to football training, coaching other young people, encouraging and helping his team-mates with their mental wellbeing before games, and supporting coaches of other teams.

His dedication to the game, positive attitude, putting others first, and supporting not only children his age and younger but adults too, has led him to be recognised with this year's Nottinghamshire Police Young Leader of the Year Award – part of the police’s Live Our Best Life Awards.

Zeko said: “I love football because it’s an amazing sport and you get to meet loads of new people, it’s really fun and is a great hobby.

“Every night before a game I’ll put a big comment out onto the WhatsApp chat I created saying ‘come on lads we need to get a win to push us up in the league’, so it will encourage them and us to get those three points.

“I’ll also come off the pitch to let my other team-mates have a go and give them a chance to play.

“We had a tough game once and one of my team-mates was pretty down so I went up to him, patted him on the back, and said ‘next time you’ll prove who you are, why you play for this club’.

“When I’m older I want to be a footballer but if I can’t, I want to be a police officer because I know people who are officers, and they say how good it is.

“I also spend my time helping out with the under-9s matches and training because I love football.”

Steve Freestone, coach of Hucknall Warriors under-13s, said: “I nominated Zeko because he’s always stood out as one of the most inspirational young children I have ever had the privilege of meeting.

“From a very young age, he took on the captain’s role without really being asked to do so.

"I was really impressed.

“On match days and training days, he’s really enthusiastic all the time and has a really positive mindset and that attitude is what rubs off on all of the other children.

“I’ve never seen someone who’s grown and developed into a role so seamlessly and so easily and taken it upon himself to just be this amazing character every single time I see him.

“Both on and off the pitch, I’ve got all the time in the world to see him and speak to him because I think he’s such an amazing young man.

“I also nominated Zeko because, in the last two seasons, we started an under-8’s team and his younger brother joined, so he voluntarily offered to go help the coach and he’s now at every training session and match.

“I just think it’s unbelievable, he’s just such an inspirational young man.”

Romel Davis, Awards founder and youth outreach worker, said: “Seeing Zeko surrounded by his friends and family and his reaction to winning this award was lovely.

“His dedication is truly inspirational and the club is incredibly lucky to have such an amazing young person on their team.”