SUNDERLAND DEAF AFC CHAMPIONS

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One of my old team mates there front nd center cracking player, congrats lads
 
Once played against a deaf team in the Sunderland Sunday League, they were excellent to be honest. Despite having a huge disadvantage their game was to simply play they way were facing and keeping possession as much as possible.

Number of times they were caught offside and just kept on going and putting the ball in the net must be frustrating as hell for them.
 
"Sunderland Deaf AFC will be in a second final next week facing Barnet Deaf FC at the Soccer AM Stadium in Basingstoke in the Plate Final on 10th May."

Going for the double! At least someone is doing us proud (These lads and the Ladies actually)
 
Ricci's Special Kebabs said:
Once played against a deaf team in the Sunderland Sunday League, they were excellent to be honest. Despite having a huge disadvantage their game was to simply play they way were facing and keeping possession as much as possible.

Number of times they were caught offside and just kept on going and putting the ball in the net must be frustrating as hell for them.
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I was Anthony's manager in the 90's when Kids with disability's had to play Sunday morning football or none at all.
He played up front for me and was even booked for kicking the ball towards goal after the whistle was blown (and the referee Knew he was deaf).
He was a very good player and a great lad, he has great passion for the game.
mate I am over the moon for you
 
I went to the game on Saturday as I know one of the lads, absolute quality the lot of them done us proud.arsenal had everything funded by the club including travel and accommodation, Sunderland on the other hand have to the best of my knowledge offered fuck all! now I love safc but the sheer lack of recognition these lads got and will get is shocking. Half time presentation and bit of funding is the least the club could do.
But hey ho well done lads just for the record arsenal had some very talented players but our boys had that northern fight

http://www.safc.com/news/club-news/2015/april/sunderland-deaf-afc-crowned-champions

Take it back at least they get a bit recognition
 
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stephen1937 said:
I was Anthony's manager in the 90's when Kids with disability's had to play Sunday morning football or none at all.
He played up front for me and was even booked for kicking the ball towards goal after the whistle was blown (and the referee Knew he was deaf).
He was a very good player and a great lad, he has great passion for the game.
mate I am over the moon for you
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Stevo!! How you keeping!! Yeah Lambton Sports FC, one of the best clubs I've ever played for and Steve, what you put into the game in those days, inspired me to do the same.

May I start, Being deaf is not a disability! We are all able body with hearing loss and communication problems which is therefore we can't even compete in the para-olympics! This frustrates us in the mainstream world, by having people taking mockery of the deaf, or struggling to get a job, not being able to become professional footballers, one of the lad I know played for Whitley Bay, another one played for Preston. In fact, there shouldn't be no boundary, just because you have a hearing loss!! Last year the FA released FA Disability Cup and at the end, out of all the disability teams, Doncaster Deaf FC & Charlton Athletic Deaf FC got into the final and Doncaster won it. Now we are banned from the FA Disability Cup because we are able body. The physical strength of deaf football is on par with hearing peers, not teams with disabilities.

We appreciate littles things such as the support from SAFC and FOL and that does go a long way for us. Like always, I hope this deaf team will be part of SAFC squad just like the ladies. If you look at the England Deaf Football clubs, you have clubs such as Manchester United, Fulham, Everton, they are recognising deaf football teams and we even have a Deaf European Champion League in which Last week POK greek team won it. We beat St Johns who I believe won the Champions League 3 times in the last 8 years. We started with nothing at the start of 2013 and myself with Lee set this up as we believe the potential of the lads in the north east, can compete in this leagues. We hope within 5 years play, to reach and win the Champion League. Some of the lads are truely mags and they play for us because they see "Sunderland Deaf AFC" not as SAFC. They are very proud to be playing in red and white (had a few banters thought) but they love it!

Now we are always on the look out for deaf players, weather they can't speak (never use the word dumb as it is a offensive word, if you didn't know this), can speak, or sign language users, we have a mixed squad of all languages. As deaf schools are closing down, kids are now becoming more mainstreamed, it becomes difficult to find the players so therefore by being with SAFC we use their marketing to help us to get the names out there and have a based to let deaf players find us. This recent publicity from SAFC have boost our followers etc.

We are in processing of getting a reserve team set up alongside joining the Durham Sunday League to improve our football to prepare for next season. We are signing 3 Great Britain Players (as there's no England Deaf) to add on the 2 we have got, and we have 4 lads under 23 Great Britain players in which 2 are going to follow in. The fact is we played in that final with average age squad of 20 years olds.

I m sorry if my English is not up to scratch on this as my first language is British Sign Language.

Hope you enjoy this read.

Keep the Faith!
 
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