Despite intensive therapy, Holly struggled socially. She was bullied throughout primary and secondary school, leading to agoraphobia and a period where she could not leave the house.
“She didn’t want to live anymore,” Mrs Dalton says. “She’d ask why nobody liked her.”
Everything changed when a support worker from the National Deaf Children’s Society referred her to the Newcastle United Foundation programme, designed for young people with additional needs.
Holly immediately felt at home.
“She didn’t need to mask,” Mrs Dalton says. “It was the first place she truly fit in.”
Despite being visually impaired and deaf, Holly plays on the wing and connects with the ball “nine times out of ten”.
For Holly, the sessions offer something even more important than sport.
“It takes my mind off everything,” she says. “I get bullied a lot but, when I’m here, I forget about it.”