Plea for more powerchair players by disabled club

A Worcester sports club is urging more disabled people to give powerchair football a try.

The sport is designed for anyone who uses a powered wheelchair or has limited movement in a manual chair, officials said.

Games are played indoors on a hard-court surface with two, 20-minute halves, four players per team, a supersized ball and goalposts six metres (20ft) apart.

Derek Cunningham, chairman of the Worcester Whizzards, said: "The more we can get in, the more we can help them to socialise and have a great time playing football."

The club train at the University of Worcester and he said they were open to anyone aged 10 and over.

"They're having a fantastic time," Cunningham added. "We're constantly trying to recruit new members and help people who are a bit isolated from society because of their need to use a wheelchair."

The Whizzards, which has members from 10 to about 30 years old, is part of the Worcestershire Disability Football Club, which Cunningham co-founded 20 years ago with another parent.

"It's a real eye-opener," he said. "taking part in a team sport with like-minded people is so important."

"When they come along they completely involve themselves in the social aspect of the game and have a tremendous amount of fun building the skill levels."

Cunningham said it could be difficult for the club to reach new people, especially with a small budget for advertising.

He said support from the University of Worcester, where the team trains every other Sunday during the season, was "tremendous".

The university's Rebecca Foster MBE, principal lecturer in adapted physical education, said accessible facilities were key to allowing disabled athletes to take part.

"Simply by having an accessible space it starts to remove those barriers," she said. "It sounds ridiculous, but to actually access the building is the thing.

"People are doing workarounds and I think people are being far more adaptive in modifying equipment to make it accessible."

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