Steadman Scott founded the Afewee Academy 16 years ago. He spotted Clyne in ‘a vicious block of flats where the boys use guns’ and sent him to Arsenal. They said he was too small

It is a little after half past five on Monday evening and Steadman Scott, perched up on a five-foot partition which divides the main sports hall of Brixton Recreation Centre, is surveying his community. About 30 children, mainly from the surrounding estates of Moorlands to Angell Town via Loughborough but clad in football shirts from Arsenal to Barcelona via Manchester United, are drilling in three age groups, taking it in turns to trap, spin and sprint. Painstakingly fine-tuning the basics. Scott’s eyes flit from one to the other, the coach occasionally barking encouragement from his vantage point but forever on the lookout for mischief, ill-discipline, lapses in concentration. The parents at the far end of the room are hushed.

Welcome to Afewee Academy, a nonprofit organisation staffed by volunteers where children from five to 16 are trained, educated and inspired. There are grassroots schemes up and down the country which have become local hubs, coaxing quality from the next generation of talent, but Afewee can claim to be different. From these sessions, on midweek evenings in the hall or weekend afternoons on the 3G pitch downstairs, over 30 young players have been scouted and recruited by professional clubs.

Their number includes Sean Scannell, once of Crystal Palace down the road and now of Huddersfield Town. Andre Blackman and Charles Dunne are at Blackpool, Leo Chambers and Nathan Mavila at West Ham. And on Thursday this club may boast its first international graduate. Nathaniel Clyne, born in Stockwell and brought up just off Coldharbour Lane, will claim a first England cap. Back home in south London, his progress is considered the realisation of a whole community’s dream.

Scott, in partnership with his fellow coach Tony Goldring, has been overseeing this project for more than 16 years with his reputation well-established locally. He has worked on community projects for Palace, Fulham and Arsenal, initially visiting schools to run coaching clinics but also encouraging those he unearthed to attend training at the Rec. The £1,500 annual hire of the hall was met in that first year by a friend who owned a car wash business and “wanted to give something back”. There was a period subsequently when Arsenal funded the costs and even had an office on site. So panicked were Tottenham Hotspur at the conveyer belt of talent emerging from south of the river that they informally hired the room next door to ensure they, too, boasted a presence. Of late, and after much lobbying, there have been grants from Lambeth council to help sustain the programme independent of club influence, even if Afewee are still reliant on donations. “Our loyalty isn’t to individual clubs who can discard players they don’t want to pursue,” Scott says, “but to the community.”

Clyne followed Scannell and Blackman into the Rec. “I picked him up in Somerleyton, a very vicious block of flats where the boys use guns,” Scott says. “A gang place. The police were paying Fulham at the time to run a summer programme keeping kids off the street, so I went to Hill Mead School for them and there he was: this little boy, really good on the ball, very quiet, very competitive. A good attitude. I told him I was looking for a bunch to come up the Rec and work so, when a club comes looking, I can show them the best boys we have. When he was 10 I sent him up to Arsenal for a trial. He was a winger at the time and I told him: ‘Take on players, score goals. Don’t go thinking you’re there to have a good time, son. You’re going there to make an impact. It’s one chance.’

Southampton’s Nathaniel Clyne, left, was spotted in Somerleyton, ‘a vicious block of flats where the boys use guns’. Photograph: Jamie Mcdonald/Getty Images

“He came back and told me he’d scored four, but Arsenal reckoned he was too small. I still remind them of that when their scouts come down: we sent you Nat and now you’d pay a lot of money for him, and he’s just knocked you out of the [Capital One] Cup. Spurs had a look at him, along with Zaine [Francis-Angol, currently at Motherwell], and liked him. But a while later Scannell, who was at Palace by then, told me: ‘Clyne’s up here and really shocking out the youth team.’” He would go on to play 139 first-team games for the London club before launching his Premier League career with Southampton.

His progress is a source of pride, not only for Corie Andrews and Mandela Egbo, following in the full-back’s footsteps from Afewee to Palace, but for all those who have tracked his progress since. This community club is not simply intent on offering distraction to keep Brixton’s young off the streets. It is also geared towards giving them something to which they can aspire: a target, a focus, a dream. Lambeth is the eighth-most deprived London borough, with the Rec slap-bang in the middle of Coldharbour ward where the poorest areas are concentrated. The children who attend Afewee grow up around violence – between 2011 and 2013 there were more shootings in Lambeth than any other part of the capital – but give them a sense of self-esteem and a chance of fulfilment and theirs is a thirst to succeed.

“The first thing I say to a kid when he comes ‘upstairs’ is: ‘What is your dream?’ If it’s not to be a footballer, don’t step over the line. Our community is at the very bottom, killing themselves off at 12 or 13 with guns, drugs, the lot. We have to find something to make them dream because the kids here who don’t have hope end up in gangs. Middle-class kids witness success every day, but the children here don’t see that. We have to teach them how to be winners, how to interact. I want to prepare their minds, their bodies, to make sure they understand they have to take instruction and follow rules. I shout at kids. I’m harsh. I want to see if they want it. They’re not here to have fun – this is Brixton, there’s ‘fun’ all over the place – so it’s my way or the highway. A bit like [Sir Alex] Ferguson would say.

“In one sense, yes, I am comparing myself to Ferguson. The rate of success proves that. How many other voluntary organisations have a similar record to ours? Our duty was to build a bridge between the community and the top clubs. Now that bridge is built. We have a boy in every London club. We have 12 senior players, and over 30 with scholarships. But this is about education. For everyone who comes here, I am the king. Parents bring their kids here just for discipline. It is strict. But there is no bullying. Even the weakest kids can express themselves here. We want them to show controlled aggression. Without that they won’t make the grade. Football’s a team game, but first of all it’s about the individual. You’re competing all the time to hold off your competition. I train them mind and body so that, when they go to a professional club, the coaches see they’re well-groomed, winners who work their socks off, asking for no favours. That gives them a chance.”

At times Scott tears into the youngsters, if not quite in full Gunnery Sgt Hartman mode but still pretty close. There are flashes of Full Metal Jacket’s infamous drill instructor in the way he reacts to those who dare to answer back. Yet the sense of respect between youth and coach is clear.

Before the class, as he sat in the cafe, a constant flow of participants had approached the 58-year-old to offer a shake of the hand in welcome. The parents seemed far warier, but the youngsters are enthused, their mentor’s charisma infectious. Lucia Marte Leon, a teenager from Spain who signed for Spurs Ladies last year, spoke of “someone who pushes and pushes, but only for your benefit”. “This is where I learned self-discipline,” says Requaan Russell, who went from Afewee to Fulham and, after suffering a serious injury, is reviving his career at the local Kinetic Academy. “Steadman is like a second father to me. He’s not in it for the money. He just wants to see you doing well for yourself and making a career out of football.”

Scott leads one of his football class at the Brixton Recreation Centre in south London. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris for the Guardian

The coach has his own reasons to pour heart and soul into this project. He served time in the 1990s, with many of those with whom he had played five-a-side still on life sentences. Some were members of the 28s, a Brixton gang from that era. “If an opportunity like this had been there back then, a lot of those boys wouldn’t have chosen that path,” Scott says. “I had to rebuild myself. When you have a criminal record you have no self-esteem, but I learned in prison I had to have a focus on something I was passionate about. I needed it, so it’s not only for the boys. That’s why it’s called ‘Afewee’ … ‘It’s for us’ in Jamaican slang. Everything you touch is yours. A community thing. It’s for all of us.”

That is why he is constantly pushing for more funding, more space in which to coach, more ways to inspire, and therein also lies a frustration. Of the 30 boys and girls who have gone on to professional clubs from Afewee only Blackman – a player whose lavish talent has never truly been realised over a nomadic career that has already taken in spells at Arsenal, Celtic and, most recently, Blackpool – has returned to speak with the current crop. “The reason we founded Afewee was to create role models, mentors in our community, because we don’t have them,” Scott says. “What I’m hoping is that, with so many boys from Afewee playing top level, one or two will come back and see us. I’d say to them the community helped you up there. You know the problems we have. You know our young people have gone astray. One footballer coming down here would make a massive difference.

“You have a duty to come back and share your experiences. It’s a chain. It will give these kids dreams. Guys like Clyne can inspire. They have a responsibility because their community, where they grew up, is still in danger. One day they will come back and talk to the kids, show them what can be achieved. It will happen. But we wait. A kid we have at Brighton called me the most inspiring person in this community recently and that is everything. Seeing Clyne playing for England? That’s a dream in a million years. I could never have imagined that. But it was always about making the impossible possible.”

Clyne should be proud of his elevation. Back at Brixton Rec, they are glowing to count him as one of their own.

The graduates: Five who have made it to the professional game

Sean Scannell Huddersfield Town

A quick, skilful forward who had a trial at Arsenal before opting to join for his local team, Crystal Palace, where he excelled in the junior ranks and into the first team. Now 24 and at Huddersfield in the Championship

Andre Blackman Blackpool

A highly regarded left-back who spent time with Arsenal. Struggled with disciplinary issues off the pitch and subsequently had brief spells with Spurs’ academy and at a number of Football League clubs, and a short time at Celtic. The 23-year-old has a new opportunity at Blackpool.

Nathaniel Clyne Southampton

Began life as a winger at Afewee and had trials at Arsenal and Spurs before joining Crystal Palace, making 139 first-team appearances. Now at Southampton in the Premier League, with a first England cap awaiting the 23-year-old

Zaine Francis-Angol Motherwell

A left-sided defender with good pace and energy, he left Afewee for Spurs’ academy and subsequently moved to Motherwell. Aged 21, he is an Antigua & Barbuda international

Leo Chambers West Ham United

A centre-half or right-back who was scouted at Afewee by West Ham. Turned pro in 2012 and has played in the League Cup. Has progressed from England Under-16s into the Under-18s

Karin Muya Chelsea Ladies

An England Under-19s forward and a rising star in the national women’s team setup. The 19-year-old Afewee graduate made her mark with Chelsea before taking a scholarship to play in the US at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana