Cookies help our website to remember you and your preferences. For more information or to update your cookie settings, please go to our privacy policy.

Accept Decline
Skip to content.

The national charity and leading voice for disabled people in sport and activity

Menu. Open and close this menu with the ENTER key.

Active Summer Fun: 'The first time I played powerchair football I just loved it'

A new participation campaign created by the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) and National Disability Sport Organisations (NDSOs) is encouraging more disabled people to find out and play out over summer. Active Summer Fun - #ActiveSummerFun on social media - is an exciting new campaign that aims to support more disabled people to find ways to be active during the warmer months.

This summer we will be hearing from various disabled people, who lead active lifestyles in all sorts of ways. We hear how they are expecting the next few months to be very busy!

The first story is from Cath McNicol from Teesside. She discusses her love of sport and how her active summer is shaping up.

Cath’s Active Summer Fun:

I really enjoy playing powerchair football. I took it up seven or eight years ago.

I used to run a local youth group for children with Muscular Dystrophy, and we’d been looking for new things to try. We had a go at a laser activity on a battlefield, and that went really well so I looked for the next outdoor thing we could try. And I stumbled across powerchair football.

We first tried it at Percy Hedley College, Newcastle,. I’d never had that opportunity to play in a team sport before.

I have used a wheelchair all my life. I have a muscular condition that is genetic, so I’ve never actually been able to play a fast-paced team sport.

The first time I played I just loved it, everything about it. I had always loved sport but have never managed to find something that I could do myself without any help from anyone else- a sport that I could be in control of.

I loved being part of the team, and when I score a goal the euphoria I feel, I never feel it anywhere else. I’ve graduated from university, I’ve passed my driving test, all of those sorts of things don’t compare to when I’m playing my sport.

Finding out about powerchair football was really easy. I Googled looking for fun activities for wheelchair users in my local area. I found powerchair football. I was really lucky because Percy Hedley is an academy purely for disabled people. It is only an hour from where I live, so it was easy to get involved.

Powerchair footballer is my major form of exercise. We’ve set up our own club in Middlesbrough and up until recently I was playing almost 11 hours a week. And I’ve just joined a new club, Middlesbrough PFC.

This summer will be very busy in terms of sport and physical activity. We’ve arranged a Middlesbrough Shield pre-season football tournament, and we’re also taking our team on tour to Scotland and Northern Ireland in August.

We don’t stop training for the summer – we carry on throughout, and have started training for next season already with our first fixtures at the start of October.

People should play out this summer. As well as getting healthy you make contact with other people – I think the social aspect is just as important as the competitive side of sport. Rather than sitting at home, get out and be around other people playing a sport or doing some form of physical exercise.

You can find out more about Active Summer Fun on the EFDS website. WheelPower is an NDSO involved in the campaign. WheelPower provides opportunities, facilities and equipment to enable wheelchair users to participate in sport and lead healthy active lives. Read more about powerchair football on the WFA website.