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Art of Football wins £20,000 entrepreneurs award

Two brothers from Nottingham who design and sell football-inspired T-shirts across the globe are celebrating after winning £20,000 at a young entrepreneurs’ awards event.

Luke and Gabriel Cuthbert were presented with a £10,000 grant and £10,000 worth of mentoring and accountancy advice after their business, Art of Football, was crowned the winner of the Baldwins Accountants’ KickStart Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2014.

Runners-up Give Vision and Virtalent, both based in Birmingham, will receive £5,000 of mentoring and accountancy advice from the expanding Baldwins Accountants group, which has 13 offices across the Midlands, Shropshire and Wales.

John and David Baldwin along with Shaun Knight from Baldwins Accountants and Fergal Dowling from Irwin Mitchell made the difficult decision after hearing first-class presentations from the three finalists in front of over 370 business professionals in the Holte Suite at Villa Park.

Gabriel, aged 19, said this would help their business expand into designing defining moments in other sports as well as other merchandise.

“I’m in shock and can’t believe that we won because the standard of the competition was very high,” he said.

“We are determined that the prize will take Art of Football to the next level because in the early stages of the business we have generated a great deal of interest and have sold our T-shirts throughout the world.

“At the KickStart awards evening, with help from Baldwins, we made many new contacts who are big names in business – and we hope to become one of them.”

Luke, aged 22, added: “Gabe’s genius was instrumental in our presentation with the art work, pictures and videos he put together and then we spent a great deal of time putting the script together.

“We work well together because our skills complement each other and the response from our products so far has been fantastic.

“We believe we have spotted a gap in the market in an industry which evokes passion as well as improving the standard of merchandising.

“We would like to thank Baldwins and winning KickStart is just the start!”

The brothers donated a signed print of Lee Hendrie – who attended the ceremony – scoring his first Aston Villa goal to the HelpHarryHelpOthers charity which was set-up in memory of 11-year-old Harry Moseley, who died from a brain tumour.

Free Radio Birmingham presenter Tom Ross, an ambassador and trustee of HelpHarryHelpOthers, compered the evening which raised thousands of pounds for Baldwins’ official charity partner following auctions and raffles.

David Baldwin, a partner at Baldwins Accountants, added: “We were extremely impressed with the standard of the presentations and entrepreneurial ideas of all three finalists and it caused a great deal of debate before we voted Art of Football our second KickStart winner.

“We believe Luke and Gabriel have great passion and talent to make their business a fantastic success and we will be offering guidance and support every step of the way.”

CAPTION: From the left, David Baldwin (Baldwins Accountants), Gabriel and Luke Cuthbert (Art of Football) and Tom Ross (Free Radio Birmingham and HelpHarryHelpOthers charity)

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .