Excelsior x Mudguard

Football can open doors, but it shouldn't define every future. Together with Excelsior, we're helping young people discover that creativity, entrepreneurship and self-expression are just as valuable as the skills they develop on the pitch. Through Community Champions, participants are encouraged to explore new talents, build confidence and realise there's more than one way to create their own path.

Looking beyond football

Throughout March, April and May, we hosted a series of Community Champions workshops with participants from Excelsior's academy and social programmes. We worked with the boys' U15 and U16 teams, the girls' U17 team, Jong Excelsior Women and a group of young people from Rotterdam and the surrounding area.

The workshops took place in the creative space of the Excelsior Foundation, next to the stadium. It's a place dedicated to personal development, where young people are encouraged to grow both on and off the pitch.

Discovering creativity

Every workshop started with the same message: everyone is creative. Not everyone knows it yet.Participants learned how to turn ideas into concepts through sketching, storytelling and design. Some arrived with experience, others picked up a pencil without knowing what to expect. By the end of the sessions, everyone had created something that reflected their own story and perspective.

For many of them, it was a first introduction to design, but also to thinking differently, presenting ideas and discovering new interests beyond football.

Every participant is a winner

At Mudguard, one design is usually selected to become an official Mudguard T-shirt.Together with Excelsior, we chose a different approach.

Because every participant invested their creativity, effort and story into the process, every participant would receive their own design printed on a personalised Mudguard T-shirt. With more than 120 participants across all workshops, that means more than 120 unique designs brought to life. A lasting reminder that every idea matters and that everyone has something worth creating.