Meet Inter Puma FC, the team that offers a chance for reformed bad boys to get involved in football and forget about their previous troubles.

This helps them as they integrate themselves back into society.

The team continues to go from strength to strength and the players are now terrorising teams in Division Six of the Sussex Sunday League instead of the law.

The founder of the team is Kenny Brady, a former drug addict turned drug counsellor, who is training to be a psychiatric nurse.

He said: "I began to organise the team as a project about 18 months ago with the hope it would develop into a helpful project to aid those affected by substance mis-use and lifestyles caught up in crime.

"It has become a social scene and a support group as well as turning into a successful football team. We have no agenda other than to help those caught in the cycle of addiction and crime."

The Sussex side, whose home is Preston Park, also play fund-raising friendlies to raise money for anti-drugs charities.

Brady said: "We organised a game against West Sussex Health Authority as a way of finding common ground between ourselves and other members of society.

"Football is a chance for ex-users to be like everybody else. The linesmen and the referee were provided by the police and we all have a passion for the game like the rest of the community.

"It is a great way of making the leap from being an ex-user to a normal person. We have all grown up and, after ten years or whatever of hating the police and the public, football is an opportunity for people like us to integrate ourselves.

"After nine months of rehab, the supportive accommodation and counselling tends to stop. The government think you are cured at that stage, but to be honest it is when most people slip back into abuse.

"You reach a critical point when you have to decide what to do, go on the dole and try to get a job, or go back to drugs. The latter is a lot easier."

The team is currently thriving. Inter Puma lie in fourth place and have a squad of 25 to choose from for 11 places. Competition for a place in the starting line-up is so fierce, Brady is thinking of creating a Second XI.

But funding is the key. With no sponsorship and backing the team are barely able to afford to play each week. They already play in a kit donated by Albion.

Kenny said: "We are currently looking for funding just to keep the side running. We need match balls and have to pay for pitch hire. It is difficult because most of the sides are sponsored by pubs and that would not be appropriate for us. An ideal sponsor would be Sussex Police!"

Paul Linehan, project manager for the NHS's West Sussex Partnership Trust, is supportive of the Inter Puma team, despite being on the wrong end of their football lessons.

He said: "They are a very good side with excellent players. They beat my West Sussex Health Authority side 5-0. The conduct of the Inter Puma players on the pitch was excellent. We were more likely to criticise the referee as we were losing."

Linehan was also complimentary about Inter Puma from a professional perspective.

He said: "Anything that is useful in occupying people's time in a constructive way helps combat addictions. Inter Puma have built up a lot of contacts through football and been good representatives for ex-addicts."

If you are interested in sponsoring Inter Puma contact me at The Argus sports desk on 01273 544 581.