SUNDERLAND DEAF AFC CHAMPIONS

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Magnificent achievement. Congratulations to all involved. You should be proud of yourselves.
 
smanty said:
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!
Click to expand...
Anthony empty your inbox mate
if I can help with any training gear bibs balls etc let me know
 
smanty said:
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!
Click to expand...

Really well done with setting up the club and doing so well!

I have a question regarding BSL, where can I learn? I have been wanting to learn sign language since I was little, and reading about you guys has made me want to give it a go
 
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