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Ash kicks off Lotto tour in Wales

27th January 2016

A Welsh world record holder showed off his skills in Cardiff Bay today.

Cardiff-born football freestyler Ash Randall, who holds 18 world records, launched The National Lottery’s Celebratory Image in Wales at the Wales Millennium Centre.

The image is touring the UK to mark the 21st anniversary of the first National Lottery draw.

It features Ash Randall and the Centre, which was built 11 years ago with the help of a £42 million Lottery grant.

26 year old Ash Randall is involved in three National Lottery funded projects.

Somewhereto_ helps people unlock their potential by unlocking free space for them to work and practice in. Ash was able to use venues including Lottery funded Cardiff Castle to create a freestyle video, showing off his home city.

Ash is an ambassador for Street Football Wales, which uses football to improve the lives of socially excluded people, and has four leagues across Wales.

Fixers helped Ash make a short film to encourage young people to realise their talents. Fixers helps young people across the UK campaign on issues that concern them, using their past to fix the future. Ash wanted to show young people that they can achieve whatever they aim for, if they have the passion and encouragement to do so.

Ash Randall said:

“I’d like to say a big thanks to National Lottery players for raising the funds for all these great projects, and for making all these things possible.”

As a boy Ash was impressed by footage of a football trick, which would change his life. He practiced, learned new skills and performed them, gaining growing interest in his work. Ash is now one of the world’s leading professional freestyle footballers, and he travels the globe performing routines to different audiences.

Last year he won the world record for the longest time juggling on the roof of a moving vehicle, performing his routine on a runway at Cardiff Airport.

The National Lottery’s Celebratory Image

The National Lottery’s Celebratory Image is on a tour of galleries across the UK. It provides the story of 21 years of Lottery-funding through a great number of smaller stories. The art piece celebrates the incredible things people have achieved with Lottery funding, from winning Olympic medals to helping war veterans recover from post traumatic stress disorder.

The Celebratory Image offers an instant snapshot of the range and variety of National Lottery funded projects. The piece brings together more than 150 people whose lives have been touched by National Lottery funding into a single image.

The finished image consists of over 50 National Lottery funded projects all at the same scale, where every person is involved in an activity that they consider the best representation of their work.

National Lottery players have raised more than £34 billion for arts, education, environment, health, heritage, sport and voluntary projects across the UK since 1994. The Celebratory Image celebrates the great breadth and diversity of this funding available to people in the UK.

For further information contact Nicola Bligh on 020 7211 3991