Harry and Bobby – finding a voice and living the dream
For two young brothers from Eastbourne, football is absolutely everything.
Harry, 7, and his 12-year-old brother Bobby are part of the Foundation’s pan-disability football group in Eastbourne.
“Football has been massively important to both of them throughout their lives,” says mum Katie. She’s seen her sons grow and develop in ways she never expected when they first joined in with the Foundation.
The boys – particularly Harry – faced challenges finding the right place to play.
As well as being autistic, Harry is selectively mute, and finding the words to express himself has always been hard.
“He can’t engage in school, he doesn’t have access to the words he needs to communicate,” Katie said, “We’re trying to get him into a specialist school and it’s hard.
“He could never say the word ‘football’, he only ever said ‘Everton’ (the team his mum supports) if he wanted to talk about football.”
Because of Harry’s unique needs, his coaches and teachers need to take extra time and care in how they communicate with him.
“Harry tried playing at a grassroots team, and they told me he’d never be able to play for a team. He lost a lot of confidence then,” his mum told us.
Harry’s physical health has also caused him problems with balance, so finding a sport that he enjoys is something really important to the family.
After finding the Foundation’s pan-disability group, Harry’s experience playing football changed completely.
“Because everyone there understands his needs it’s not an issue,” his mum said, “He doesn’t cope well in large groups, so coach Phil has always made sure that he has someone he can play with one-to-one.
“At the Foundation you’re part of a family. If you miss one week, people will get in touch asking if everything’s okay. The coaches are more than just coaching. They’re counsellors, therapists, friends.
“Saturday is the day that he relaxes. He’s content, he smiles the whole time.”
Harry was always very reliant on his mum to communicate.
As he’s grown closer to his coaches, however, Katie has seen her son start to grow in confidence and find new ways to talk to people.
“There was an incident where he fell over and instead of coming to me like he normally would, he went to his coach Chester,” she said, “He could tell Chester exactly what happened and why he was upset.
“That might not sound like a lot, but to me that’s massive. It’s given him the independence to go and talk to somebody that’s not me.”
Since he started playing at Foundation sessions Harry has come on leaps and bounds, even finding new words he’s comfortable saying.
“Instead of ‘Everton’, he now calls it ‘football-ball’. Coming here is giving him more words,” Katie said.
“I can’t put it into words, obviously the social aspect is massive but coming here has literally given him words, it’s given him the ability to go and talk to people, the confidence to go off on his own and enjoy things.
“So football is vitally important to him. We just needed to find the right place for him, and the Foundation ticks every box.”
Harry has made friends at his football group, and his time playing there gives Katie peace of mind that he’s happy and enjoying himself.
“As a parent with a child with a lot of neurodiverse challenges, it’s a couple of hours a week when I know that he’s happy, safe, content, and enjoying himself,” she said.
“And he’s made a lot of friends. There’s a little boy called Jackson and his sister Maddie, and my boys would follow both of them to the ends of the earth!
“He has a couple of friends at school but he doesn’t talk about them much. His football friends, he talks about them all the time! He’s got people he looks forward to seeing.
“He doesn’t always get the coaches’ names right, but he looks forward to seeing them all the same. It’s a massive thing for him.
“The moments he’s had are all fantastic, but the best thing is the fact that he remembers. He associates words with memories, he can talk to me about things we’ve done.”
12-year-old Bobby plays at the same sessions as his little brother. Like Harry – perhaps even more so – Bobby is football mad.
“All Bobby wants to do is play football, play football, play football,” says Katie.
As part of the disability football programme, Bobby has plenty of opportunities to play games and train. His team plays against other football clubs, and recently he had the chance to play at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground.
“Bobby went and played at Chelsea the other week. What other opportunity would a 12-year-old boy have to go and do that?
“He’s living his dream. He’s getting to play at the club’s training ground, he’s getting to train and play matches at these amazing grounds, he wears the Brighton colours, and he’s enjoying it so much.”
While Bobby also plays for a mainstream grassroots team, his coaches at the Foundation play an important role in bridging the gap between him and the mainstream game.
“He plays grassroots at the weekend and sometimes he’ll get told things he doesn’t understand, so he can go and chat to one of his Foundation coaches and they can explain it to him,” his mum said.
“Bobby said to me that Foundation coaches are like translators. He said to me, learning football is like learning a new language.
“People use all these different terms – like ‘get on your toes’ – and some neurodiverse children will take it literally.
“Foundation coaches say it in a way that all the children can understand, give them the tools to understand how their bodies need to work when they play.”
Bobby is enthusiastic and his coaches say he’s coming on leaps and bounds. He hopes to play football for as long as he can, a hope his mum shares too.
“He loves playing. If he gets to play adult football, that will 100% be down to the Foundation,” she said.
“I can’t put into words what the charity has done for us. They may not be the next Lewis Dunk or Solly March, but they both enjoy it so, so much.
“Harry might not play every moment of the game, but he enjoys it all. We won’t be going anywhere.
“They thrive, they absolutely love it. We come home and they’re begging to come again. It’s changed both of their lives massively.”