The People’s Cup may be coming to a grand finale, but disability football is only just kicking off
By Andy Robinson
The final of this season’s FA People’s Cup takes place this Sunday 20 March in Sheffield.
The BBC has supported the tournament through their Get Inspired campaign after the success of last year, with over 30,000 unprofessional gracing the pitches nationwide.
Although it encompasses all categories of football, this season’s tournament has particularly focused on the development of pan-disability football after Sport England’s 2015 survey revealed it was the fastest growing disability sport.
Kent is at the heart of this drive by forming not only the first official disability league back in 2005, but also developing it into the largest in the country with over 50 registered teams.
I spoke to Brian Gray, 44, Chairman of the Kent Disability League, about the foundations of disability football in the region.
“Those that know about it love playing here; these guys come from all over Kent. It’s just getting other teams involved in it that don’t know that we’re here.
“Here we haven’t got any voluntary teams even though this year the BBC has pushed it towards people that wouldn’t usually get the opportunity to come along and take part. This is the Kent Disability League that’s running it as no one else came forward to play.
“We’ve posted on Facebook, the website, Twitter. The Kent FA has posted on their website, their Facebook, their Twitter. We’ve done as much as we possibly can.
“Today is the result of the volunteers that endlessly work behind the scenes after their normal working day to get this running for these guys.
“The main thing is at the end of the day when you stand here and you see the guys come off; they’re all smiling and happy as they wouldn’t normally get the chance to play football.
“We only hold seven events during the year. We would like to hold more but we’ve got no sponsorship.
“It’s all voluntary. We charge teams to get involved but that just about covers our overhead, that’s it.
“We have to pay for the venue which costs a lot so we are looking for sponsorship and things like that but we’ve had no luck so far.”
The Kent FA are no longer in charge of the Kent Disability League as it is now completely controlled by a separate committee built up from volunteers and representatives from various teams involved in the league.
I spoke to Natalie Curtis, 30, Inclusion Development Officer for the Kent FA, about what the Kent FA are doing to try and inspire more disabled people to play football.
“We have a really good link with the Kent Disability League so we were asked by The FA if we wanted to help organise the Peoples Cup.
“We promoted it out to anybody who wasn’t in a team so individuals could have turned up and played as well as teams from other counties.
“The Kent Disability League is now a stand-alone league like every other league in Kent.
“We support them obviously as much as we can and we have a really good working relationship with them but they run off their own back, with their own committee and make their own rules.
“I think there’s probably a lot of funding out there for disability groups but trying to find somebody who has the time to write the bids to get that funding can be quite tricky.
“I think maybe a bit more support in making it easier for disability groups to access it or having somebody who can help support that would be really beneficial.
“It’s all run off volunteers who are very dedicated individuals which allows for something like this to happen. What we’d do without them I don’t know!
“A lot of clubs have been asking if there’s a disability element to the People’s Cup which has been really good to hear.
“I think they’ve had good interest across the whole of the country but the South East is quite popular in disability football as well so I would appreciate the fact that a lot of teams would probably show up for it.
“Starting from a young age is a good route into it. What we find with disabled children is that they’re able to cope with mainstream football for quite a number of years, probably up to about 10 or 11. If they have severe disabilities obviously they come into our youth setup.
“It’s only when they come to the point when they can no longer access mainstream football so it’s really good for the disability league to be there as an outlet when those children can’t play there anymore.
“We haven’t actually accessed the funding from the People’s Cup yet. The Kent FA gets a lot of funding from The FA and Sport England so that’s part of our funding package to help disability football.
“What we have done is promote the website and the links to our clubs to obviously promote out into groups who might see the BBC Get Inspired campaign or wouldn’t necessarily know anything about the Kent Disability League.
“It’s been really good from their point of view as an advertising board for what they do, where they run and what competitions they can enter.
“It’s all about getting the word out there. We speak to a lot of organisations that work with disability groups that are saying ‘oh is there anywhere they can go for activity’ and when we say we have one of the biggest leagues in the country, they didn’t even know we existed.
“It’s speaking to people who wouldn’t necessarily be involved in a footballing aspect to show well actually, this is where we are, this is what we do and the BBC Get Inspired campaign has helped open that door to those people that might think ‘oh I want a go at football’, type it in on the internet, right now I can see where I can go in my local area.”
Championship side Charlton Athletic put a huge emphasis on their community trust to allow disabled people the opportunity to get involved with sport.
They have produced an extremely successful Downs Syndrome team named Charlton UpBeats, which consists of some of the countries finest athletes including Paralympic swimmers
Gavin Coates, 54, UpBeats Manager, told me about what the tournament means to his players.
“I think this tournament is amazing to see the people with different disabilities being able to play and compete against each other.
“The Charlton Community Trust has quite strong links with the Kent FA and part of this tournament is organised by some of the volunteers from Charlton.
“It’s brilliant to be able to compete in the FA People’s Cup. That’s a great boost for the kids.
“They’re already making a big thing out of this; that it’s the FA Cup for them. They love it; they think it’s really special so they appreciate that.
“The club support us immensely! We’ve got massive streams of disabled football. There are teams here like deaf teams as well as our Downs Syndrome team, some Ability Counts teams.
“Charlton do a hell of a lot of work in the community for disabled people and people with mental health issues; it’s incredible how much Charlton put into that.
“Football brings people together; it’s wonderful.”
And that’s what football in its most basic sense is all about. Forget about the commercialism and competitiveness. Bringing people together whether its teams, clubs or fans, to have fun and enjoy sport.
The BBC Get Inspired campaign is a step in the right direction through publicising it to the masses but at its core, a severe lack of funding puts its long-term survival in peril. How can something maintain sustainability when it struggles to conserve self-sufficiency?
The accomplishments of the Kent Disability League prove that there’s a strong demand to play and those that do reap the benefits but there’s so many more potential star footballers that don’t even know it yet.
It’s crucial to get the sport to them and expand disability football further but with expansion comes a need for even more volunteers.
There was a last minute appeal to acquire qualified referees for the first round of the People’s Cup here in Kent. A similar struggle will grow more apparent the larger the sport grows.
These few valiant volunteers put so much effort into giving happiness to others and to see how much they enjoy what they do is inspirational.
Gaining more funding would work wonders in not only attracting players but attracting employees to keep the ball rolling on and off the pitch.
These people deserve recognition for the work they put in but the joy they help generate is beyond monetary worth to them.
Disabled football has a massive future. The high standard of coverage of this year’s People’s Cup has proven that.You will be able to see just how far the sport has developed at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer.
Team GB will succeed with Kent at its heart, setting a prime example of how to strive for success and bring smiles to faces that may not have a lot to smile about in their normal, day-to-day lives.
Here’s a fantastic goal scored by Portsmouth’s Spike Westbrook in the previous round which went viral on social media. Hopefully there will be more screamers like this on Sunday!
Photo Credit: Kent Disability Football League
