'Our disability football teams keep on growing'

Kiveton Park FC now has three pan-disability teams

A football club whose players were told that pan-disability teams were just "having a kickabout" has expanded to include three competitive squads.

Kiveton Park FC in Rotherham launched its first team for disabled youth footballers in 2023 and two more are set to start playing matches.

Children aged between five and 14 with additional needs can take part in coaching and games.

Club welfare officer Rachel Habergham said: "Football is in an interesting place and there's lots of very old views in some quarters. Last week I heard 'I'm not going to let my children play with the naughty autistics'. "

According to Ms Habergham, the growth of the team has been "huge" in the last year.

"We have players with all disabilities, including neurodiversities, and they don't have to have a diagnosis, which I think is really important.

"We have a system where it can take years to get a diagnosis, so as long as it's been identified through school and they're on a pathway for a diagnosis, all of those children can come."

Coaches spent time building relationships with parents to persuade them that the club was the right environment for their children.

"It started really small, we only had two or three kids for quite a long time.

"Parents particularly need to know that the set-up was going to be right for them."

This season there are pan-disability teams at under 10, under 12 and under 14 level. The players train on 4G pitches at Wales High School and compete in the Sheffield and Hallam County Disability League.

Eleven-year-old Eadie is deaf and her father Jay said she has thrived since joining the club

For coach Alana Habergham-Rice, Rachel's daughter, being able to draw on her own personal experience has helped with running the sessions.

She said: "I've got a disability myself and I've played in mainstream football since I started, but I always felt different and I wanted to give young children a space where they didn't feel like I did when I first started.

"I find it quite hard to make new friends and speak to new people. And so when I first played I didn't speak to anyone for a long time and my dad was like, you're going to have to talk to them because when you go on the pitch you've got to communicate."

She added: "A lot of our children come and they mask a lot and you find that a lot in autistic girls, and when they finally start to be able to lift the mask a little bit, seeing that side is really positive because that means they're comfortable here and they feel safe."

Alana and her mother Rachel both volunteer at Kiveton Park FC

One of the star players on the team is 11-year-old Eadie, who is deaf and wears a cochlear implant to help her on the pitch.

Her father Jay admitted it was "gut-wrenching" for her to leave her previous mainstream team, but that the coaches found it "difficult" to accommodate her "different needs".

Jay said he has sensed other parents can be dismissive about the pan-disability team.

"I think there's an element of 'it's not a real team'. It's more of a kickabout and an attitude of 'let them have a go' but it's not like that at all.

"There is a competitive element and it's inclusive and she loves it."

For Shani, Kiveton Park has also proved the "right" club for her 12-year-old daughter Eliza, who is autistic and has cerebral palsy.

"She really enjoyed the mainstream training, but when the teams were being formed she struggled a lot with the rules and just generally wasn't moving as fast as the other children."

Shani described watching Eliza play in a competitive league match as both "terrifying" and "beautiful".

The success of the club has attracted the interest of local Rother Valley MP Jake Richards and Barnsley South MP and sports minister Stephanie Peacock.

Peacock said: "That's what sport's all about. It's so good for health and for wellbeing, for healthy life expectancy. I know from my own area of Barnsley that the life expectancy in Barnsley South is seven years less than the other side in Penistone. So it's really important, I think, to inspire young people from an early age whatever your background."

Richards, a keen footballer himself, said the club was something Rotherham should be "really proud" of.

"Sport is such an asset, especially for young people in our area and so if there are people who feel excluded from sport for whatever reason then we need to break down those barriers - and if this is a small way of doing it for this group of kids it's just fantastic."

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