A new football club has been founded near the seat of the Bradford riot of 2001.

And the Sportsweb Soccer School is the work of four young people who describe themselves as "from the streets" and are being honoured for their achievement.

Baasit Arif, Serwat Mir, Hasnen Hussain and Ibrar Hussain together dreamt up the idea for the new club and have seen it grow.

They have given up Saturday and Sunday afternoons for more than a year to found the club, recruiting children, drumming up sponsorship and coaching the team on fields off White Abbey Road.

The club, called the Sportsweb Soccer School, is now going strong with their U15 team riding high in the Telegraph & Argus league.

Now, the four people behind it are being honoured with awards under the Millennium Volunteers scheme. They have gained awards after clocking up more than 200 hours of voluntary activity.

"Actually it's more like 600 hours in our case," said Ibrar Hussain, 20, from Manningham.

"We go with the team to every game. If it's got to do with the kids, we're there."

The foursome were all employed at Manningham sports project Sportsweb as youth coaches, when they decided to set up the new scheme in their own time.

Hasnen, 20, who lives at White Abbey Road, said: "We started it just three or four months after the riots, when that area was torn apart. There didn't use to be anything for young kids down there. When we set it up, we were getting 60 or 70 kids every week, mostly through word of mouth."

Now, the best of the players are in the 22-strong squad and benefit from regular coaching, while other youngsters also regularly attend the football skills training sessions on Saturdays and Sundays.

The team run out in a new kit sponsored by Cairo Zak's takeaway, a local business.

"They are very nice kids," said Zak Hussain, of Cairo Zak's. "They do all right for the community as there was nothing there before. They are doing a good job and we are happy to support them."

The volunteers are all grateful for their training at Sportsweb and the chance they have had to put something back into their community.

Ibrar, who says he was expelled from both Grange Technology College and Shipley College, has now got sports coaching, first aid and child protection qualifications and is applying for a job as a school learning mentor.

Serwat, 21, from Girlington, is using the experience to train as a youth worker.

They were among 31 millennium volunteers to be honoured for their achievement at a ceremony last night at the Alhambra Studio theatre.

"Bradford should be very proud of its Millennium Volunteers," said Lisa Cumming, co-ordinator of the scheme.