Submitted on
Monday 25 July 2011
by
Jackie Newing
Born with congenital glaucoma, David Clarke, 40, was robbed of his sight by the time he was five but has gone on to become one of the world’s most capped players.
Last week the London 2012 Paralympic hopeful attended the UK’s first regional disability football conference, which was organised by the KCFA and held at Sevenoaks School. He told KoS afterwards that he was pleased to give his backing to the association’s awareness drive.
“Disability football wasn’t catered for back when I first started playing, but that’s really changed in the last 10 years or so,” he said. “Now we have a national academy, development squads and a national league, but most importantly we have centres of excellence around the country including in Kent.
“The ultimate aim is to make the pathways for playing football the same for disabled people as they are for able-bodied people, and Kent is leading the charge in that respect.”
Blind footballers play with a ball containing a ball-bearing so they can hear where it is, meaning spectators must remain silent while the action on the pitch unfolds. The players also wear blindfolds to account for varying levels of sight, with coaches stood behind either goal instructing them when to shoot. Mr Clarke has represented England and Great Britain in a number of international competitions, scoring more than 100 goals in the process.
He said: “The game is very quick and athletic; it’s not just people bumping into each other. It needs people with exceptional athleticism and spacial awareness.
“It’s not about knowing where the goal is – it’s about knowing where the corner of the goal is. There’s a whole raft of disabled people out there who haven’t even considered playing sport before, so the challenge is to not only make it available but also to reach out to those people.”
Last year the KCFA was awarded the prestigious Foundation Level of the National Equality Standard of Sport in recognition of its attempts to promote equality in Kent. The association, which devotes 34 per cent of its annual budget to the cause, is now working towards the next stage up, the preliminary level.
Former Chelsea defender Paul Elliott, who is now an ambassador for the Sporting Equals charity, was also in attendance at the disability conference. He said: “It’s been a truly inspirational evening and great to find out about all the work going on here in Kent for disability football, but there’s still work to be done. Many disabled people still don’t know about the opportunities available to them. The Kent FA should shout out about the magnitude and depth of work going on here.”
This tory has been reproduced from www.kentnews.co.uk and was written by Steve Knight.