{"id":169634,"date":"2025-09-26T04:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169634\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T04:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:51:11","slug":"ipswich-players-join-disability-football-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169634\/","title":{"rendered":"Ipswich players join disability football sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two Ipswich Town players have taken part in disability football sessions at their Portman Road stadium, saying it was &#8220;nice&#8221; to bring some smiles to the faces of participants.<\/p>\n<p>George Hirst and Kasey McAteer enjoyed a kick about with players from the Ipswich Town Foundation, which offers six hours of disability provision every week.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The group said participation had risen from fewer than 10 players in 2021 to about 140 today.<\/p>\n<p>McAteer said: &#8220;It&#8217;s nice when you see their faces light up and if I can bring 30 minutes out of my day to make them happy, it&#8217;s a well-earned day. I&#8217;m happy to get down here and I look forward to watching them play some games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"man wearing a hoodie standing in front of a stadium with 'IPSWICH TOWN' signage on the side in white text.&#10;\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/9884a4c79b83ef821e32f7abff95eb09.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ipswich striker George Hirst took part in the session [Tom Williams\/BBC]<\/p>\n<p>The foundation offers sport activities and courses to people of all ages from across Suffolk.<\/p>\n<p>Ipswich striker Hirst said he had visited the group &#8220;quite a few times&#8221; and enjoyed spotting members in the crowd on match days.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;For people in this situation it&#8217;s not always shiny every day. People go through a lot of different hardships.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I can come down here and put a smile on on their face for 10, 15, 20 minutes&#8230; if they can go home and have something to talk about then then that fills me with joy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A woman wearing a dark jacket and identification lanyard standing in front of a soccer goal on a field, with blurred figures in the background.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ac79c2ec75c4fdf0e09b86a2bdb317bd.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Leanne Smith said the foundation made football more accessible [Tom Williams\/BBC]<\/p>\n<p>Leanne Smith, community engagement manager, described the sessions as &#8220;organised chaos&#8221; where attendees &#8220;get stuck in&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She said it had been &#8220;immense&#8221; to see the attendance numbers grow since she started in the role in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lots of them can&#8217;t access grassroot mainstream football for whatever reason,&#8221; she said of those who take part.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everyone deserves a safe place to come and play football and access football.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve created friendships from it. Their carers and parents have also created friendship through it- it&#8217;s not just about the football it&#8217;s about building a community and I think we&#8217;ve done that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Man in a wheelchair wearing sunglasses and smiling on a football pitch.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/efc09ab87ede087bfa6921d09bec632d.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Harrison Mayhew-Kemp credited the foundation for bringing him out of his shell [Tom Williams\/BBC]<\/p>\n<p>Harrison Mayhew-Kemp has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cjeykqqqjdwo?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:been volunteering with the group for several years.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">been volunteering with the group for several years.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;It&#8217;s just incredible really to think that the boys and girls can play in front of their heroes rather than being the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Without the foundation I wouldn&#8217;t be the person I am.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It just gives me a life and it gives me an opportunity to not only speak to wonderful people, to make new friends and have new colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really brought me out of my shell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Follow Suffolk news on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/curation\/p0cjdz3v?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:BBC Sounds;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">BBC Sounds<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCSuffolk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbceastofengland\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCsuffolk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758862271_350_\"\/><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Ipswich Town players have taken part in disability football sessions at their Portman Road stadium, saying it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,110926,10599,110929,110927,110928,85],"class_list":["post-169634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-george-hirst","tag-ipswich-town","tag-kasey-mcateer","tag-leanne-smith","tag-play-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}