The England football team this week backed the It doesn’t have to happen (new window) campaign - a Home Office initiative urging teenagers not to carry knives.
David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and David James took time out from their training schedule to attend a press conference with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and call for an end to the use of knives as status symbols.
Beckham told journalists of his own experience of knife crime as a youngster. When he was 13, his best friend's brother was stabbed and badly injured.
Beckham said, ‘One day he was walking the streets, saw a fight, went over to help, got stabbed in the back and was paralysed.
'No one wants to see the devastation I saw my friend and his family go through.’
Ferdinand has been a long-standing anti-knife campaigner, and, like Beckham, he is passionate about the subject. He grew up on an inner-city estate in Peckham in south London and helped establish the Damilola Taylor Trust in 2000 after the ten-year-old was fatally stabbed nearby.
The Home Secretary welcomed the support of the England players, and joined them in calling for young people to change the way they view knives.
She said, ‘I am delighted that the Football Association and the England football team are supporting our campaign warning youngsters about the severe consequences of knife crime.
'The England players are role models for this generation and I hope that their messages have a positive impact.’
