His playing days may be over but ex-York City and Sunderland striker Marco Gabbiadini is still inspiring people at football’s coalface, as he tells STEVE CARROLL.

FOOTBALL is the game that breaches all divides. It’s a saying discarded as a cliché. But a look at the work of Marco Gabbiadini and York company Inspire2Independence will tell you that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Gabbiadini was the free-scoring forward who terrorised defences and was a hero at York, Sunderland, Derby and Darlington in a near 19-year career which yielded 273 goals.

Now his role as head of sport-based learning at the Millfield Lane-based recruitment and training firm is giving him the kind of thrill he used to get scoring goals in packed grounds.

Well, almost.

Inspire2Independence’s Welfare to Work programme is helping thousands of people back into employment.

Based at Premier League and Football League clubs like Manchester United, Everton, Blackburn and Preston, it uses football to try to motivate people to gain the skills they need to become successful.

Gabbiadini’s role sees him use his contacts in the game to liaise with clubs – persuading them to act as training centres for the long-term unemployed, incapacity benefit claimants, lone parents, ethnic minorities and homeless people.

Football is the gospel.

Those on courses wear club kit, take part in training sessions and stage mock post-match press conferences. It’s partly about growing confidence. And what’s more it works.

“It works at Sunderland and Manchester United but it also works at Morecambe and Skelmersdale,” he said. “The possibilities are endless. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t believe it could work.

“I have seen it work. It fulfilled something for me. It gave me an opportunity to be involved in football – in sport – and I have got a lot of contacts in that world.

“I am more involved on the setting up, liaising with clubs and contract negotiations. A lot of the work I do is meeting with people, such as the Professional Footballers’ Association, which puts a lot of money into community programmes for the clubs.

“There are people at many stages of their lives (that come to us). They may have worked for 20 years. They may have been really successful people and they have had a setback, and another setback, and all of a sudden their confidence has gone.

“It happened to me a couple of times in my career but I had the support there – of family – and the self-belief to come back. Some people don’t have that support and that’s what we try to give.

“It’s the teamwork ethic. We use the same principles of a football team – communication, responsibility – all these things some people can find challenging.

“To turn up at the right time, with the right kit, is a simile for going to work with the right equipment and some people find that difficult. It is simple things.

“Instead of saying to somebody ‘we are going to work on your interview techniques’ we turn it into something more interesting. We will put a video camera out and say they are post-match interviews. We’ll even go to the areas of the stadium where the managers would do it.”

Gabbiadini has a hands-on role. He still gets the boots on for training sessions and the 42-year-old reckons it’s amazing the impact this work can have on a person.

He added: “There was a guy at Sunderland last year who didn’t want to do the activity we were doing. We were coaching and there was some football going on. It wasn’t that it was to a high standard – it was more the involvement.

“He didn’t want to get involved but we had a video camera. They gave it to him and he started doing interviews and grabbing people from the session. He really came out of his shell and they couldn’t get the camera from him.

“It is amazing how that one day meant, for the rest of the course, he really came out of himself.

“We also talk about interviews and that some people can have many without succeeding. We brought up the example of the Ghana player, Asamoah Gyan, in the World Cup.

“He missed a penalty and five minutes later he had to take another one. It’s about the mental strength that you need to do that. We take it for granted but he took a massive set-back and then had to step up to the plate again.

“It’s showing people that it can be done. It’s very powerful when 20 unemployed people are watching this video. It’s not quite the same thrill (as scoring goals), but almost. It’s fulfilling in a different way and the challenge for us is to get out there. We do a lot of work to create the opportunities. We’ve never been turned down by a football club yet.”

Gabbiadini started his career at York, scoring 18 goals, before moving on to Sunderland and says he still looks out for their results. Although not born in the Minster city, he regards it as home.

“I am pleased they are still in existence – there was a time where that was hanging in the balance,” he added. “I’m a believer that we have five professional leagues in this country. The standard of football is good and York’s football in the play-off final, in the second half, was as good as the Third and Fourth Division used to be.

“The challenge to get out of the Conference each year is difficult because there are some big names in there. It’s big challenge as there are always one or two clubs throwing money at it each season.

“I always look for their results and hope they do well, but financially it’s difficult to get out of that division.”