This Girl Can: Anna's story
For the past three weeks television adverts, social media posts and billboards across the land have advertised Sport England’s latest campaign This Girl Can. It’s a sassy celebration of women everywhere no matter how they exercise, how they look, or how sweaty they get.
The national charity, the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) is supporting This Girl Can to ensure more disabled women can get involved in the campaign.
In January, Sport England’s latest Active People Survey was published. It showed that 121,700 fewer disabled people and 125,000 fewer women are regularly taking part in sport. EFDS believes that the results reinforce the importance of understanding and responding to disabled people’s needs and preferences much more effectively.
Campaigns like This Girl Can will play an important role in increasing the numbers of all active women, especially those living with impairments and health conditions.
Anna Jackson plays and coaches for Cheshire Phoenix, having represented Great Britain at wheelchair basketball for 10 years before retiring in 2008.
“Currently I’m trying to build my fitness back up,” she says.
"Exercise had been such a big part of my life for that period of time. After retirement I needed a bit of a break, really, but I’m now realising how much I’m missing it. Now I’m seizing every opportunity I get to be back out on a basketball court.”
Anna – This Girl Can
Ten years of playing sport at the highest level, representing her country at wheelchair basketball, but Anna Jackson’s passion remains undimmed.
She quit the international scene in 2008 and now plays for and coaches at her local club. But her enthusiasm for sport and physical activity stretches back to her childhood.
“All I wanted to do when I was younger was sport,” she tells EFDS. “That was my life.
“My mother was a PE teacher and I lived by a tennis court, and sport was just ingrained within me.
“But as I got towards the end of my time at school in the Sixth Form I could play hockey or tennis but I would get the most horrifically aching leg afterwards, and it just didn’t make sense.”
Like many people, Anna initially overlooked her physical problems and continued to enjoy competition and exercise.
But while sport brings so many benefits, physical and mental, her wellbeing continued to suffer.
Studying sports therapy in Llandudno, it took a lecturer to spot that, while practising sports massage in class, Anna tended to rest her weight only on her right leg.
“My tutor asked what was wrong with my left leg and I showed her that it would be really red and swollen and uncomfortable after exercise.
“She thought it was a bit strange and that started a process of me going to see consultants and trying to get to the bottom of it and getting it fixed so I could play sport.”
Soon, sport was not the first thing on Anna's mind.
“I had chronic problems with my knees, both of them. That started a series of now nine operations of my knees, seven on my left and two on my right.
“I realised that sport for me was coming to an end as I was having to take so many painkillers and use so much tape just to be able to play one hockey match. It just wasn’t worth it anymore, and soon I realised that my days running about were over.”
It was to be a major transition for someone so used to enjoying sport and physical activity, and who had always dreamed of playing hockey at the highest level.
What now, for the student who wants to play sport, but can’t because of the pain?
“I had met a guy who was a wheelchair basketball player and he ran a club in Chester, and he invited me along,” she explains.
“I first climbed into a chair in 1997 at the age of 25, and initially it was a really weird feeling. I had been used to running around and so sitting in a chair and moving myself was a bit like bumper cars to begin with. And the buzz I got from that was just amazing.”
Suddenly, from the basketball court becoming a place of the past, doors once again swung open and Anna was able to re-embrace the sport.
“Life became so much better once I discovered what a set of wheels could do for me.
“I didn’t see it as being reliant on a wheelchair, but instead that my chair granted me the ability to play sport again.
“I was able to whizz around on the court and get sweaty and tired and ache, and that was something that I’d lost.
“I know some people struggle to get into a chair to play sport, but for me all of a sudden it gave me freedom. I still remember that first session, and it was just amazing.”
Nowadays, Anna combines using her chair with walking when she can. While her sporting side is now all based from a wheelchair, day-to-day living is an interesting blend which, she says, can cause confusion among other people.
“Getting in a chair to play sport made me realise that wheels could give me back my freedom and my independence, so I pottered off and purchased an everyday chair.
“Suddenly life was amazing again, because I could go into town, I could pop down the shops, I could even go on holiday again because I could take my wheelchair and not worry about my legs flaring up and becoming stuck abroad.
“And it can confuse people sometimes, when for example I wheel around a supermarket but then stand up to get something off the top shelf!”
As a disabled woman for whom exercise is central, Anna is very well-placed to extol the virtues of living an active lifestyle.
“Getting my qualifications for coaching wheelchair basketball was very important,” she insists.
“To be able to give back to the sport was one thing, but also to be able to inspire other people to do what I’ve done. The beauty of this sport and what we’re doing is that you’re part of something and it doesn’t matter what’s wrong with you or what doesn’t work. It’s about sport and that positive environment.
“Life can deal you some naff cards at times but what we try and promote is it’s all about people being positive and taking responsibility for themselves, looking after their chairs and so on.
“It’s certainly more than wheelchair basketball coaching – it’s about a much bigger picture.”
And that motivation, to inspire others, is echoed by the This Girl Can Campaign. It shows women exercising, some for seemingly the first time in a very long time while other for perhaps the fifth time in a week.
Anna is a big fan.
“I love This Girl Can, I think it’s brilliant, and I’ve watched the adverts so many times. It’s real people doing real things. It’s not stick-thin models who are not living in the real world like the rest of us.
“I love it, and from a disabled person’s point of view I think it’s great that there are some really positive messages in there.
“The campaign is great, and it’s given women’s sport a real nudge.”
Would you like to try wheelchair basketball? Visit British Wheelchair Basketball's website for more information. Join the conversation and follow @thisgirlcanuk on Twitter and use hashtag #thisgirlcan and 'like it' on Facebook, visit the website on www.thisgirlcan.co.uk and check out the exclusive campaign film previews. If you are an active disabled woman and have a story to tell, please contact Jimmy Smallwood.
