The Football in the Community scheme arrived at a pivotal time in the history of the national game. Battered by numerous tragedies and with the Thatcher government of the 1980s seemingly prepared for the sport to wither on the vine, the PFAsought to buck the trend by getting professional players to spend a few hours a week on community work. The initial pilot area was the football hotbed of the North West comprising Manchester and Lancashire and such was thesuccess of the scheme that withi...