Robbie Turning the Tables by bringing the beats to Oslo 2025
While the balls have been banging in the back of the net across Rådhuspladsen this week, it’s the banging tunes from the players’ rest area overlooking the quayside that have been helping unite the players off the pitch.
The man responsible for creating the vibe is Scottish DJ Robbie Tolson, founder of Turn the Tables, a social enterprise dedicated to changing the lives of people affected by mental illness, crime, poverty and homelessness through the power of music.
A degree in property might not seem the most apt qualification for a career in nightclubs, but University gigs were the springboard for Robbie to start DJing, which turned into a full time pursuit by the time he was in his mid twenties. That was also the time in his life when his personal tables turned.
“A close friend took his own life and I re-evaluated my life off the back of that,” he says. “He was a club promoter and I’d see him three or four times a week, usually around 3am, when he was at his most vulnerable - when nobody else saw him because I was the only one there - so I felt I should have seen that something was wrong.
“That guilt weighed heavily on me. That was my motivation to do something to help people.”
Friends had suggested that volunteering would be good for his mental health so Robbie started helping out at a homeless shelter - the Social Bite village in Granton, Edinburgh. “I was their first volunteer,” he recalls. “With my property degree, I knew about social housing so I thought that might be of some use to Social Bite but I ended up using my music skills instead.”
What began in 2018 as a DJ workshop at the shelter, quickly becoming a weekly fixture before developing into Turn The Tables. Through working at the shelter, he heard about the Homeless World Cup.
“We had just got our first funding from Creative Scotland, during lockdown in 2021, so it was a no-brainer that we’d help out at the HWC Four Nations event at the Mound in Edinburgh that September, playing in between games,” Robbie adds. “We got hold of some decks, a little PA system - John who was playing beside me at the opening ceremony here in Oslo played at that event too. So it’s been a full circle moment for all of us.
“A lot of the players that weekend in Edinburgh were asylum seekers and refugees, so I played a lot of afro beat and they loved it. If you want to create an atmosphere, get the African nations going - they’ll bring the party! It was there that David Duke, from Street Soccer Scotland, heard us and suggested we work together.”
That collaboration led to securing funding for a long term programme in Dundee - championed by superstar local DJ Hannah Laing - with a room at a former sports centre about to be converted into a full-time music studio; a permanent youth music programme for young adults who are disengaged in education or employment and an after school programme for kids are also ongoing.
It’s a wonder Robbie had time to bring the beats to the opening ceremony in Oslo last weekend - but it was an opportunity he wasn’t going to turn down.
“We invited Matoma, who’s a superstar Norwegian DJ, to join us,” he explains. “We’d been trying to work with him for a while, it happened that Homeless world cup was in Oslo so it was the perfect project for us all to come together. He really brought the energy to the opening ceremony - people have been saying it’s one of the most lively ever.”
Turn the Tables’ tent in the players’ rest area has become the behind-the-scenes hit of the tournament, with Robbie and his colleague John keeping the players entertained, maintaining the carnival atmosphere of the ceremony and running DJ workshops with the players.
“At the start of the first workshop everyone was a bit shy, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Given the mix of backgrounds and trauma many players have suffered it’s no wonder they’re initially distrusting of these brand new scary people making loud noises,” Robbie adds. “But we’re here all week, so hope more people will approach me and John.”
The aforementioned John - aka JohnBoy, who’s been doing sterling work on the decks in the players’ area - is a direct product of Turning Tables, as Robbie explains: “John’s now in his 60s and felt he’d been written off by society. He’s neurodiverse, supertalented and hugely knowledgeable about music and came to the project just after he’d moved out of the shelter in Edinburgh.
“He learned to DJ but it wasn’t just the lessons - like Homeless World Cup and Street Soccer- it was the community coming together to provide a safe space for him. His social confidence improved, he then enrolled into college, did media and sound courses, and now he’s at university doing a degree. He puts it all down to just having the confidence to put himself out there - he had the skills but lacked the self belief.”
Any chance of Robbie resurrecting his own degree and going back into property?
“No chance! Creating Turn the Tables - which has just become an official charity - and doing things like coming to help at Homeless World Cup has changed my life so I’m fully committed to this life.”
Words by Isobel Irvine | Photos by Anita Milas and John Anderson