Blog: "Playing powerchair football makes me feel really good"
The English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) website features a blog post every Friday through the year. In 2016 we’ll be taking a look at an A-Z of accessible sporting and fitness opportunities available to disabled people. This week it’s P for powerchair football, and Amir Ali discusses how sport helps him feed his desire for competition.
Amir’s blog:
I am in my 10th year of playing and enjoying powerchair football. I was one of the founding members of Villa Rockets. I play as a centre but I can also fill in as goalkeeper.
In a game of powerchair football eight players are in a squad, with four players on the pitch at any one time. It’s twenty minutes a half, and the sport is mixed gender.
The key is to try and make triangles between the three outfield players in an effort to get the ball moving.
Powerchair football can be very competitive. The top teams have an ability to score many goals a game, but most of the time a match is very close. It can be really quite tense – this season we’ve had a lot of games where goals have gone in during the last few minutes.
I’ve always used a powerchair – I have dystrophic dwarfism and scoliosis, otherwise knows as curvature of the spine. I also have clubbed hands and feet, and I’ve never been able to walk.
Before taking up powerchair football I attended a school for disabled children which has access to lots of sports and activities. I’d often be involved in games or competitions, and I was an active swimmer in my teens.
I discovered powerchair football through a friend of mine who was setting up a team as a branch of Aston Villa. I was invited to participate, as well as coach other players and generally help run it.
To be a good powerchair football player you need to have an excellent understanding of your wheelchair. Often, a person will have been in electric wheelchairs for the whole of their life, so they will have a good “feel” of it, what it can do and how to control it.
Playing powerchair football makes me feel really good. I like to be competitive and play sport. From the first minute to the final whistle I am trying to get stuck in, trying to combat any tension or anxiety.
And I’m quite vocal, so I talk to all teammates on the pitch, trying to encourage them.
As a sport, powerchair football is actually really good exercise. You build up quite a sweat speeding around the pitch. Although it doesn’t look like a lot of physical movement, your concentration is key. Plus you’re tense as you control your chair.
The sport is accessible for the vast majority of powerchair users. The equipment is accessible and a lot of teams have the expertise to immediately accommodate you. You can just attend and have a go, and the social aspect of meeting other people with similar conditions is important – it’s what we try to achieve at Villa Rockets.
Although I do play for Rockets I’m actually a Manchester United fan. We do have Villa fans within our squad, and there’s a variety of supported teams.
If I modelled myself on a United player then it would be Roy Keane – aggressive, but within the limits! Playing on the edge, that’s me.
