William hugged by fans during visit to ‘fantastic’ youth centre

The Prince of Wales was hugged and mobbed by south Londoners when he visited a “fantastic” youth centre which he pledged to support.

William was stopped in his tracks by a female fan who bounded over and asked for a hug as he walked towards the centre, and when he left the prince was surrounded by selfie-seeking well-wishers.

The future King visited Mentivity, a youth club in Walworth that aims to go beyond teaching life skills and help children acquire the emotional and social tools needed for a digital world.

He played computer games with youngsters – losing at football but winning a car race – and told an executive from Spotify, which is working with Mentivity, that he was surprised the King’s recent Apple play list did not feature more classical music.

When the prince arrived, Oluwaseyi Soyebo-Idowu, 50, waved at William to stop after she spotted him posing for a selfie with another member of the public and asked a passer-by to take a snap of them with her camera phone.

Elevating William to the status of monarch, she said afterwards: “I’m very excited, I’ve never seen a King – it was very nice to meet him. He was so humble, bringing himself down to ordinary level.”

Later, William sat down for a discussion with Mentivity founders Sayce Holmes-Lewis and Leon Wright and some of their partners and told them: “You’ve got a really dynamic team who get the local community and understand the challenges and that is really exciting.”

He added: “What can we do to take Mentivity and make it bigger, without diluting what you do – so I’m already thinking about that.”

During the visit William sat down to play a Mario Kart racing game with Zia Adeniyi, 10, and three of her classmates from the nearby Michael Faraday Primary School, and after he beat the 10-year-old in a close race said “thank you girls, that was brilliant”.

Zia said afterwards: “He said he didn’t know how to play it and he kept asking me the controls and then he beat me.”

But he later found his match when his beloved Aston Villa took on Bayern Munich in a computer football game which he lost, and when the royal sat down for talks with the community project’s founders joked: “When we were two nil down I turned to the boy next to me and said – what colour are we?”

William learnt about Mentivity from an online movie called The Centre created by filmmaker Adeyemi Michael with support from Spotify, and Rik Salmon from the music streaming platform chatted to William and said afterwards the prince had said he used Spotify to find new music and it helped him calm down.

News of the royal visit had spread and when William left, after spending more than 30 minutes extra at the event, he was besieged by locals wanting a picture as he made his way the short distance to his waiting car.