More than a game

Harry's story: Stoke gave me the chance to carry on playing football

By Mark Orlovac 4 Dec 2024
Harry, Stoke City, Premier League Disability Football Festival

How accessible football sessions provided by Stoke City Community Trust and the Premier League have given one visually impaired footballer the opportunity to follow his paralympic dreams

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"Football has given him a confidence because it's given him something positive about his eyesight. It's made him more confident to own his disability and not be ashamed of it. It gives him that chance to go forward and have those dreams."
Harry's mum

To mark this week's International Day of Persons With Disabilities, we are taking a look at how Premier League community programmes are providing football sessions that are accessible for all.

Harry has played football for as long as he can remember. So when his visual impairment meant he had to stop taking part in mainstream football a few years back, it was a big setback.

He has nystagmus due to oculocutaneous albinism, which affects both his long and short-distance sight and made following the ball, especially when it is sunny, difficult.

"I played mainstream football until I was 12 and I couldn't see the ball in the air," he says. "I'd be half a second behind the play so especially when it went to 11-a-side, I couldn't cope with it. We knew mainstream football wouldn't be for me.

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"I can't recognise your face from seven metres away. I tend to know people by the shapes of their bodies and the style of their clothes. Every visually impaired person has different sight and for me, one day I might see something and the next day I might not.

"Having had it since I was born, you don't know any different but when people describe what it's like to see normally, you notice the differences."

But thanks to accessible football sessions provided by Stoke City Community Trust through its Premier League programmes, Harry has been given the opportunity to compete and play the game he loves.

"Stoke have helped me with so many things," he says. "I haven't always accepted being visually impaired and sometimes I would get angry. The coaches have done lots of work with me and calmed me down. If I have a slight wobble, I know they are there for me.

"The club have been a part of my life for half my life. It's just somewhere I can go and if I've had a bad day at school, I know I can go and play football with my mates.

"Without this, effectively I wouldn't be playing football."

As well as offering Harry regular football sessions, being with Stoke City has set him on the road to hopefully represent his country in visually impaired football.

"I have been on the England pathway since I was 10," he says. "It's for hearing impaired, visually impaired and cerebral palsy footballers. We train together and the end goal is to become a paralympian.

"To have that opportunity is incredible. That could be me. I don't have to be a normal person and I can still play for England. It's crazy. I wouldn't be on the England pathways without this."

Harry is one of thousands of participants with a disability that take part in programmes funded through the Premier League Charitable Fund, every season.

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And he hopes that by showing what can be achieved, others will be inspired to follow in his footsteps. 

"I don't want people constantly asking if I'm all right," he says. "You just want to fit in.

"If you're hearing impaired, got cerebral palsy, visually impaired or you're an amputee, there is a pathway for you. It's important that people know that these pathways exist.

"You can come on to the pitch and just be playing football and forget about everything else. If you put your mind to it, you can do it."

This summer's Premier League Disability Football Festivals were a celebration of how the Premier League's community programmes - Premier League KicksPremier League Inspires and Premier League Primary Stars - connect young people aged from five to 18 with football, providing positive opportunities to help them reach their potential.

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