Lou Macari joined The Football Show to explain how Dublin was the driving force behind setting up 'The Macari Centre', a charity that helps homeless people.

Macari has set up the centre to now hold forty 'glamping'-style pods, each giving one homeless person a room, a heater, a television and four guaranteed meals a day.

"For the 48 people we've got, it's probably the first time in their lives that they've had something of their own," he said of the pods.

He told us how the idea came about.

Lou Macari on his Dublin trip

"I thought that I had not done a great deal with my life to help other people because everything has been for me. I’d been with great football clubs," Macari said.

"I’d been to Dublin plenty of times as well, to work for people like yourselves. I visited the Capuchin Day Centre, and Brother Kevin was in charge at the time.

“I used to see people queueing around the street to come in for their lunch, and I used to go in with them and sit with Brother Kevin. I would say that I never knew that this was going on in the world, people begging and desperate for food.

"So it all really started for me in Dublin, because I didn’t see many homeless people during my football career in Stoke-on-Trent, where I live.

“After my football career had gone, I’d gone into management and in doing television especially, I had been to Dublin and stayed in a nice hotel on the Main Street in Dublin. Just around the corner, there was Bow Street, where this Capuchin Day Centre was. I used to see what was happening there - that was the first indication I had that there were less fortunate people in the world.

“So I was given an opportunity which I knew I could do - I knew I could feed people, get clothes for them and put a roof over their head. I simply decided: I’m going to do it. Four years ago I set off to achieve that, I did achieve it and four years later we are still going.”

The simple things

Macari explained how it is the simple things, such as having a number outside your door, mean so much to people whose situation is at a low ebb.

"They used to go to the Job Centre, but they had no address because they were on the streets. So getting an address for them, which they had in our previous place was good, but having a number, and being able to say 'I live at 5 Regent Road, Hanley..' that is a big thing.

"Before I got involved with homeless people, because I have been fortunate in football to have played for Celtic and Manchester United. I don't think that there are many people in the world that can better that."

Macari is aware of his fortune, and how others may lack it at times.

"I look back and think how fortunate I've been and now I am dealing with people that are the very opposite, I realise the huge gap between being fortunate and not so fortunate."

It is Macari's dream to help eradicate drug addiction, which he feels exacerbates the problems faced by homeless people. He hopes that society can factor this into consideration when discussing homelessness.

"Sometimes homeless people don't react the way they should do and get criticised for it, and I don't think that criticism is always wrong. Due to the drugs, drink, they can do things wrong in town centres.

"But I would like to think that when they have got drugs inside of them, and alcohol, that is not the real person. I am fortunate that in here I see the real person and I see the wrong person, sometimes in the space of a week."

If you would like to help support the Macari Centre, you can find more information here.

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