University News Last updated 11 November 2022
As Disability History Month approaches (16 November – 16 December), BCU’s Men's Football team played at England’s national football centre, St George’s Park recently. They played against the national Cerebral Palsy team.
This comes after BCU Sport hosted England’s Deaf team and Partially Sighted team at the Doug Ellis Sports Centre in Perry Barr, to compete against our men’s team.
This opportunity came about through work between BCU Sport and the Football Association (FA) in a joint effort to increase awareness and participation in disability football.
Disability teams can have issues with finding opponents and more specifically, fair and competitive opponents. Due to this, BCU Sport stepped in and provided the national Deaf team, Partially Sighted team and Cerebral Palsy team with matches against BCU’s Men’s Football team.
This provided the opportunity for national sides to visit our facilities in Perry Barr and in return, our students visiting the National Football Centre in Burton upon Trent, where Gareth Southgate’s England team will be preparing for the upcoming World Cup.
BCU Men’s Football captain Liam Davies (pictured), who recently appeared on the BBC show Hire Me, said:
Off the back of this, four students who play for the Men’s Football team, now regularly train with the national Cerebral Palsy team, despite being able-bodied. This allows the disability side to have a greater skilled opposition and teammates in training sessions.
Sport Development Officer Adam Crowle, who also works with the FA and helped organise the visit, said:
As part of the upcoming Disability History Month, BCU Sport will be running sessions encouraging disabled students to get into sport. Alongside this, some of the national disability players will be visiting BCU and talking to our students, through the links Adam and BCU Sport have created.