remembering the towering figure of the lion-hearted youth club ‘miracle man’ John motton

By Herbie Russell herbie@southwarknews.co.uk

at 6Ft 4 and weighing seventeen stone, with a head of bright blonde hair, John Motton was hard to miss. But ultimately, it was his dedication to the youth of south london that made him a towering figure in Bermondsey and rotherhithe.

Sadly, John passed away surrounded by his family on February 17, 2023, aged 75, after a long illness. But his legacy is imprinted in the memories of the hundreds of children who passed through the Red Lion Boys Club in Rotherhithe, from 1988 to 2018.

John Motton was born on Sayers Street on July 15, 1947, and grew up in Walworth with his two older sisters Barbara and Marlene. He met his wife Maureen when they were both teenagers, as Maureen lived above John’s aunt on nearby Carter Street. They “immediately clicked”, would have three children, and were happily married for 55 years until John’s death.

John spent his early career working as driving a double-decker around south London. It was a far cry from the community youth work he would later dedicate himself to. But driving a bus through the 1981 Brixton riots, where he was shot in the shoulder with an air gun, and had his bus pelted with petrol bombs, may have prepared him for the chaos of controlling crowds of excitable children at the Red Lion Boys Club for 30 years.

In the early ‘80s, John would take his children Nicola, Matthew and John to a local youth club but was shocked when he heard organisers shouting and swearing at the kids. It made John and Maureen wonder whether there was a different way of doing things.

So in 1988, John took over the Red Lion Boys Club on Hawkstone Road, which is now unfortunately closed. When he joined, the youth club was a minimal affair. It had just one football team, a set of sparsely furnished rooms, and a handful of children.

That soon changed.

Under John, the club grew to include fifteen football teams ranging from the under-sevens to under-sixteens. Snooker tables were brought in, a gym set up and discos held every Friday.

But it was the atmosphere John created that made boys flock from all over London, Maureen said: “There were a lot of clubs where if you couldn’t afford it, you couldn’t go in. That wasn’t John. If you didn’t have your subs you came in, you played. Money wasn’t anything. Their happiness was all he wanted.

“For a club in Bermondsey at that time there wasn’t a single bit of graffiti in that club, not one fight.”

“We were known for our parties. It was always ‘don’t turn the music off we want another half hour’,” said his daughter Nicola.

Maureen added: “He wouldn’t see anyone go hungry. He even started the canteen at the club - cooking so children who didn’t get a meal at a home could come in and get a meal. That was the kind of man he was.”

John was proud to run a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic club. “It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from, everyone was equal at the club… it was a safe haven,” Maureen explained. She told the News that he was dubbed the ‘miracle man’ by parents of the youngsters attending the club after they saw the transformation that he had undertaken there.

Hundreds of budding footballers passed through Red Lion Boys FC, including Charlton’s Jason Euell and Dulwich Hamlet’s former player and manager Jason Rose. But the most notable prodigy to train at the club was a young Rio Ferdinand, who became good friends with John’s son Matthew.

The England centre-back and Man United star stayed in contact with the family and sent them a heart-felt tribute after hearing of John’s passing last month.

Red Lion Boys FC was hugely successful, winning the London Cup, League Cup and League 5-a-side Cup. On one occasion, the team played, and won, on the hallowed

Wembley turf, with John driving the team there in his double-decker bus.

“They smashed it out the park. Everything they were in, they won. It was medals, medals, medals,” said Nicola.

John’s hard work didn’t go unnoticed. In the early ‘80s he was visited by Prince Phillip, with whom John apparently got on well.

The entire enterprise was funded by John and his family, receiving no financial support from the government, council or the federation of boys’ clubs.

The club was briefly commandeered by squatters. But a warning from a policeman that the club was loved by Millwall fans, some of whom were due to pass by that evening, was enough to disperse them.

In October 2018, John suffered a burst aorta and emerged from the other side of a fourteen-week induced coma. Ever the fighter, he constantly battled with his health after that, but he never fully recovered.

However, he still found the strength to be a much-loved, fun and hilarious grandfatherof-eight and great-grandfather-of-two. His great-grandson Frankie said he’d lost his “best friend” when he found out he’d passed.

The Red Lions Boys club building was sold off by the federation and closed in 2018. It was later bought by Southwark Council, which is reportedly planning to redevelop the site. “I’d open that club tomorrow because the children today are the next generation and, if they’re running wild, what’s life going to be like?” Maureen said. But whatever comes of the Red Lions Boys Club, the happy times it hosted, and the memories it created, will forever live on in the minds of the boys, now men, who passed through its doors. And at the centre of those memories will be the gentle giant, John Motton.

The funeral is on March 20. The procession will leave 1 Holbeck Row, Peckham, SE15 1QA, at 2pm and arrive at the Honor Oak Crematorium, Brockley Way, London SE4 2LJ at 3.30pm. The family have said they welcome everyone who knew John to join them to celebrate his life.