Since 2015, Big Ideas have delivered the Education Challenge for the Premier League Christmas Truce Challenge Tournament. Under 12 players from each of the Premier League Academies are invited to take part in an education project, submitting their work to a judging panel to win a place in a football tournament in Ypres, Belgium. Every year European teams come together to commemorate the extraordinary events of 1914 when enemies in the First World War played football in No Man’s Land on Christmas Day. 

This year’s theme is The Christmas Truce Marks Windrush75. Players are marking Windrush and discovering the story of Walter Tull and his role as an early Black footballer, and the first Black officer in the British Army to lead his men into battle. Tull’s father was a Caribbean immigrant more than 70 years before the HMT Windrush landed on British shores. Walter Tull’s story is a powerful example of the contribution of the Caribbean community to the United Kingdom. 

Players will respond to Tull’s story by writing a poem, letter, or other creative output about what Walter Tull and what his story means to them. They will then complete a social action project celebrating the contribution of the Windrush generation to their local community in a creative and inclusive way. 

We look forward to receiving outstanding entries from academies across the country, and sending three clubs to the Christmas Truce Tournament in Ypres, Belgium in December 2023. 

Watch the video below for the results of last year’s Premier League Christmas Truce Challenge, with the theme Spirit of the Poppy.