By Alex Karavas
One thing is for certain and that is that football doesn’t discriminate.
The game that we watch, play, or volunteer at has no requirements for participation. Whether you are supporting your local team, playing at club level, or cheering on your favourite players, acceptance and inclusion are some of the reasons which makes our game so great.
Football brings communities and people from all walks of life together, which is where the St. Albans Football Club’s new FIDA (Football Integration Development Association) team is helping lead the way.
For St. Albans FIDA coach, Ian MacKenzie, a chance meeting with SCOPE was the inspiration behind the idea to get a St Albans FIDA team up and running this season.
“A couple of years ago I was president of the cricket club and through our sports club manager Keith Barnard, a disability support group called SCOPE approached us to do a cricket abled body clinic and run a bit of a training session in the nets which we did with all our cricketers.
“We then had a presentation night a couple of years ago at Princess Park for a program called Balloon Football which allows people in wheelchairs to play football and that’s when I met Logan who runs the FIDA competition.
“I spoke to him after the presentation night and found out more about what FIDA is and what was required and said I wanted to get involved.
“It’s taken us a couple of years to get it going along with fellow organiser Nick Brown, but we’re really proud to finally get a team together.”
Established in 1990, FIDA has been providing a program of Australian Football for over 400 people with an intellectual disability throughout Victoria.
Players involved in FIDA enjoy an environment that not only promotes fitness, friendships and sense of belonging, but more importantly, enhances the players’ life skills and develops self-esteem.
While a number of other WRFL clubs also have FIDA teams competing in the fortnightly competition, St.Albans is the first club in the Brimbank municipality to provide a FIDA team for people in its community.
Despite the Saints only having five players registered with the team thus far, it doesn’t stop the smile on the faces of the guys donning their football gear and having a kick.
“While we are down on numbers, we just mix the teams up and have a bit of fun,” MacKenzie said.
“We play St Francis next week and when we played them a couple of weeks back before one of our senior games on the Saturday, they had a couple of abled bodied guys just join in and help out…which we had an absolute ball doing.”
While the rules of the game are slightly modified, don’t be mistaken, the St.Albans boys go in hard at the footy, from handballing, to shepherding and even kicking goals as they emulate their AFL heroes.
Given that St. Albans’ FIDA team has just started, volunteers are an essential part in making sure that the squad has a solid foundation to grow from in the future.
If you would like to get involved or know someone in the community who would like to play with the St.Albans FIDA team, please contact Ian MacKenzie on 0401 133 755 or visit www.fida.org.au
Follow me on Twitter @Alex_Karra
Last Modified on 18/06/2015 16:39