Ed Fordham, 41, director of the Hong Kong Football Academy, Arsenal Soccer Schools, took two Hong Kong youngsters to a UK soccer tournament earlier this month under the Operation Breakthrough project which gives sporting chances to Hong Kong street children.
Working with Hong Kong street children through Operation Breakthrough was something that was close to my heart, because when I grew up in Cambridge in the UK, I was a bit of a street boy myself.
My dad died when I was 10 years old. He went out one day, kissed mum goodbye as if he was going to the office and never came back. He was found dead under a train and I was left on a cheap housing estate - the sort of place that they used to keep all the wayward families in one place.
We weren't a wayward family but we were poor, and I was roped in with a band of bad lads. Soccer was my way out. For me, it wasn't just a way out of poverty but it was also an escape from my dad's act of bravery or cowardice. I'm not sure to this day what it was.
My father's death had a massive impact on me, but I threw myself into my sport. I played every sport that there was to play. Luckily I had some sort of talent. I started playing for Cambridge City and I was going to be a footballer. That was going to be my future.
Then, when I was 18, I got an injury that finished my football career. After that, I went off to the south of France and sold doughnuts on the beach. I used to sit there watching the Mediterranean sun going down and I thought: 'What am I going to do?' I decided to go back to full-time education. I did five A-levels and a degree and I ended up running a soccer school here in Hong Kong.
This summer, I personally paid for the two lads from Operation Breakthrough to attend the Arsenal International Youth Tournament in the UK. I was lucky because I was able to go back to education and I wanted to give a chance to some lads who'd been in a similar situation to mine.
