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VEE-EVENTS:
Deaf football
Deaf football | Find
out more | Gallery
As the football season draws to a close, VEE-TV visited
the Queens Park Rangers football stadium in west London for a special
training session. Why? Because British deaf football is on top of the
world!
Ben Lampert,
Oliver Monksfield and Ayad Sarraf of the GB team
In the 2005 Deaflympics in Melbourne, Australia,
earlier this year, Great Britain beat Iran 2–1 and won the gold
medal. Before that, they'd beaten Germany 4–1, Turkey 4–1,
Ireland 2–0, Australia 5–1 and Greece 2–0.
And it's definitely not just the men either! The women's team beat Norway
3–1, then drew 3–3 with Denmark and thrashed Australia 5–0!
Sadly they lost their final game 0–3 against the USA.
Bright future?
At the QPR ground we chatted to Phil Gardner, the manager of the men's
deaf Great Britain team, and Chris Gywnn, the coach.
Phil's family has a long sporting history. His dad played in goal for
Lewisham Deaf Football Club on his 75th birthday! Phil himself played
for nine years with Lewisham DFC and has played for the last 10 with Luton
DFC.
So what does the success of the Great Britain team mean for the future
of deaf football? 'The medals in themselves are great publicity,' Phil
says, 'and with events like today I think the clubs here have a very healthy
future.'
'We've got a lot of very good young players coming through,' Chris Gywnn
added, 'and there's a lot of interest throughout the country. We want
to bring those players on – maybe by starting an under-21 team.
But it depends on support and how much funding we can get.'
Confused?
So what is the official situation? The English Football Association (FA)
provides funding for the England deaf team. But this team isn't recognised
by the CISS (International Committee Sports for the Deaf) so can't it
compete in the Deaflympics.
The Great Britain team can compete, but it lacks funding because football
is organised and funded on a national basis in England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland, and so their respective Football Associations are
only interested in funding their own national deaf teams.
Meanwhile, UK Deaf Sport says it wants to ensure that the various national
teams are allowed to take part in competitions such as the Deaflympics
that have so far only been open to the GB teams.
Confused? So are we.
For more about how you can get involved in playing football yourself,
see Find out more.
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