Tottenham provide vital health checks in local community

He was measured and weighed, and Nacer Chadli had his heart rate and blood pressure checked - but it was no ordinary medical for the Tottenham midfielder, reports Sky Sports News HQ's Ian Bolton.

He was in the Public Library at Wood Green in North London, a couple of miles west of White Hart Lane, supporting the club's Foundation health check scheme.

The initiative encourages local residents to have health checks that in the past have only been available at GP surgeries. They're carried out at pop-up clinics, by a practitioner employed by the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation - known as ‘the Spurs Nurse’.

Over recent months the clinics have been held in supermarkets, post offices and on the high street, and they've been a great success - more than two thousand people have been seen since the scheme started in March last year.

Chadli told Sky Sports News HQ: "We have to encourage this, to check if the blood pressure is good, and the heart rate. I think people have to take care. I heard that more than two thousand checks have been made in the last year, and I'm very proud of it."

The health check involves:-

- measuring height and weight for BMI calculations.

- taking blood pressure

- taking a blood sample (to test cholesterol levels)

- finger prick test (to test glucose levels for diabetes)

Four in five of the tests have been on men, who have been targeted by the programme because typically they do not visit their GP regularly. 

Maria Abraham, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation Health Project Manager, explained that the scheme is designed to try and identify any possible health issues as early as possible, and praised the work done so far by the 'Spurs Nurse'.

She said: "Her biggest strength is she loves the community, and gets to the places where people go who don't use health services. So it's understanding our community, feeling part of it, in the heart of it.

"We are in Haringey, we are in the community, we are giving back something to the community."

Chadli urged anyone in the local area, who hasn't had a health check recently, to do so.

He added: "I would encourage them to go and to make a good decision, to make a check. It doesn't take long, I did it. It's good to start 2015 fresh.  It doesn't hurt at all. It's most important that you stay healthy, and for this you have to make those kinds of checks."

The scheme, which is also supported by the local authority, is currently only running in Haringey, but Abraham hopes it will be expanded to other local Boroughs.

And for the record, Chadli says he's 189cm tall, weighs "around 86" kg, and revealed he'd been told his blood pressure was "the top of normal."