Our Disability Football Programme provides accessible and inclusive football sessions in London, where everyone feels welcome. We offer a fortnightly Pan-Disability Football session and a fortnightly Blind and Visually Impaired Football (Blind and VI) session for young people.
Our Disability Football Programmes kicked off in 2021. Since then, we have hosted events and sessions to combat isolation and access barriers around Blind and Pan-Disability Football.
The aim of these sessions is to get young people active, learn new skills and gain confidence through the power of football, all while having fun!
PAN – Disability Session
Every Wednesday we run a Pan-Disability Football session at City of London Academy Islington. Our sessions have a higher ratio of coaches to players to ensure that the players are supported and feel safe. The emphasis on these sessions is to offer a welcoming environment where young people can make friends and have fun. Young people in this programme also have the option of joining Bloomsbury at the monthly FA Pan-Disability Festivals.
Blind and Visually Impaired Football Session
Every Monday we run a football session for Blind and Visually young people. We also run Blind Football Festivals in partnership with Learn with ESS and Azeem Amir, which provided a great day of fun for our young players. These Blind and Visually Impaired Football sessions have a higher ratio of coaches to players to ensure that the players are supported and feel safe. All experience levels are welcome.
OUR PARTNERS
Azeem Amir
To improve our Disability Football provision, we have teamed up with Blind Footballer Azeem Amir. Azeem plays Blind and VI Football at international level for England and founded Learn with ESS, a workshop initiative aiming to challenge individual and societal perceptions surrounding disabilities.
Learn with ESS and Azeem have led five workshops for our young people and coaching staff, incorporating a mixture of classroom and on-pitch activities to teach transferable skills.
Alex Brooker
Comedian and journalist Alex Brooker joined our team as a Bloomsbury Football Ambassador in 2023. An advocate of our Pan-Disability Football programme, Alex has attended our Inclusive Football Festivals to help continue removing access barriers to football in London.