Blyth Spartans latest to launch Northumberland FA inclusion hub, offering football to children with disabilities

It will become the region’s second hub where children aged six to 11 with disabilities can turn up and play, following Cramlington United’s successful launch earlier this season.

The hubs aim to provide children with an opportunity to socialise while developing their skills and confidence.

The Spartans will run pre-Christmas taster sessions before operating regularly next year, with plans for Whitley Bay FC Juniors and Wallsend Boys Club to open hubs too.

Blyth Spartans club director and general manager Mike Coulson said: “We have got the facilities and we have got a number of schools in our area that would certainly benefit, so we applied [for a hub].

“Blyth Spartans is a massive name in non-league football and we have not done ourselves justice in terms of going out to the local community and offering the facilities we have to disadvantaged groups.

“We are very fortunate to be in a position where we can offer to do these sorts of things and it is nice to be able to give something back to the local community, because that is where we want to position the club.

“Let's get going and see where it takes us.”

Chris Kilburn, football development officer at the Northumberland FA, said the Cramlington hub has been “quite powerful.”

He said: “These are children who have never really played a team sport.

“What Cramlington United have done is provide them with strips and they now feel part of that team.

“You can see the impact It's had already in the short period of time that Cramlington have been running theirs, and I'm sure we'll see that with Blyth Spartans, Whitley Bay and Wallsend too.”

Changing coaching staff’s perspectives on disability sport has been one of the scheme’s biggest impacts, according to Mr Kilburn.

He said: “Once you've actually delivered that first session within disability football, you can see that the players have a lot of ability, have a lot of potential that you can do a lot of coaching from, and that you get a lot of satisfaction from delivering.

“I think that is the major change. Coaches will see that disability football is viable, you can coach it, and the children want to learn.”

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This is the first season that this provision has existed and there are no full teams yet, but the ambition to grow the programme into a league and expand geographically is clear.

Mr Kilburn said: “That is the long term plan, to prove that it can work and that disability football is popular and sustainable.

“Having a junior disability league would be fantastic and is the long term goal for myself and the Northumberland FA.

“If these hubs continue to grow, they will probably stop being known as hubs and every community club will end up having a full disability pathway from juniors all the way up to adults.”

The Northumberland FA has been running the Participation League for adults with disabilities for the last couple of seasons.