Co Antrim club promoting disability inclusion has sights set on future success

Meet the disability football team scoring major goals in the wider Newtownabbey community.

Antrim Newtownabbey Disability FC was started during the pandemic to allow both children and adults with disabilities the opportunity to be included in football and pursue their passion and love of the sport.

Founded by coach Jim McCracken, the team has grown from strength to strength despite the challenges of setting up a club in between lockdowns.

Speaking to Belfast Live, Jim said: "I was involved with disability football for a couple of years and sort of stepped away from it but I had a number of parents get back in contact me to start up another team.

"I had just started a new job so I wasn't sure about it but I sat for about a week and thought about how much I enjoyed seeing them enjoy the football so I phoned one of the parents who has four children at the club now.

"In August 2020 we started the team up and had nine players originally for the adult team which is ages 15 up so we went with that. Obviously Covid was still around so we couldn't compete but we held training whenever we could."

After only a few months of operating, Northern Ireland went back into lockdown but the club still continued to run in the background, preparing for the day they could welcome back their players safely and securing a pitch to train on for a few months.

"In June last year, we decided we would start a junior team for ages 7 to 14 and the first day we had 35 kids," Jim said.

"You obviously lose players along the way and some come down just to try it and it's not for them but at the moment we sit with about 25 juniors and about 13 in our senior team.

"They are both made up of male and female players - we compete in the IFA Disability