There is a new face and a new role behind the scenes at Oxford United as John Armstrong joins us after a very successful spell at Charlton Athletic. John has joined our Community Department and is busy building two brand new programmes, as he explained:

"I've been working on an E2E programme - Entry to Employment - which is all about engaging young people who have fallen out of education to get them back in to full time education or employment through a twenty week course.

"Football is a great tool to engage young people who are maybe bored by normal education techniques - if we can incorporate football and sport in to their education programmes it makes it more useful and interesting to many young people."

"The second part is to create a social inclusion programme - getting out into the local community, engaging younger people who are perhaps harder to reach, by working with potential partners, like the police and Oxford City Council to create safer communities."

John, 28, has a wealth of experience in this sector:

"I ran a social inclusion programme in south east London and Kent as North Kent Co-ordinator. Working with young people who perhaps didn't have the best start in life or the positive role models that a lot of us have. As coaches we can be positive role models and just by going out and talking to them we can build relationships with them and educate them about what is acceptable behaviour. The whole programme across Kent engaged around 12,000 young people per month and we would regularly see 100 young people turn up and play football at a single session."

John is passionate about his work and we asked how he got started?

"I fell in to this by accident really, after leaving university I worked part time with Fulham and Charlton just when social inclusion programmes were starting up, I fell in to it and really enjoyed it. It's a great chance to contribute and it's not really a coaching role as I'm not working with academy players I'm working with hard to reach young people, which they don't teach you on a FA course. It's more of a youth worker or social worker role, looking to engage young people.

"It's really rewarding. Working with agencies I worked with one young man in a mentoring role for two years, he'd just finished school with no qualifications and we got him in to college. We also got him out of his care home and back home with his parents. So over time, through football, we proved that you can make a positive difference to people's lives."

After that success John is now looking forward to the new challenge here at The U's:

"Oxford United has so much potential, I think it's time it became famous for the work it does off the pitch in the local community. I think both the community side and the football side can improve together, and both are going from strength to strength"

Our Community department is busy this week teaching hundreds of budding young stars all over the county and John's work will dovetail what Peter Rhoades-Brown and his community coaches do:

"We want the kids to come in to the club over the summer and enjoy the soccer courses, if we discover the next Wayne Rooney that would be great, but it's also a chance to engage with local youngsters and teach them some new skills and have fun.

There's a lot going on here, but I think there's more that could be done. It's also about singing our own praises a bit more and then pushing on more and more so people see Oxford United as a community club and then as a football club."

The obvious question is whether inside the Social Inclusion officer is a frustrated footballer?

"I played a little bit of semi-professional stuff when I was a youngster but didn't really have the time to train as much as I'd like but I tell people I was a great player!

I'll be playing for the staff team, definitely, if selected!"

After a couple of weeks in the role John has hit the ground running and is enjoying it very much:

"So far, it's been really positive, we've had some great meetings with Oxford City Centre and the police to get some schemes in place. People can get in touch with me through the community department and by e-mail and it would be great to get feedback and messages from fans with further ideas and thoughts on the programmes."

Call John on 01865 337525 or email jarmstrong@oufc.co.uk