Football for everyone: how the section works for children with cerebral palsy and motor impairments
Participants of the physical education football group, which operates at the Khabarovsk Regional Sports and Adaptive School, are proud to share their first successes. Material from the publication “Khabarovsk News”
– Here, we won the cup! — Yegor Shchelchkov holds out the weighty award. “They even flew to Novokuznetsk for this.”
In response to my surprised look coach of the team with disabilities, current employee of SKA-Khabarovsk Valentin Milchin adds:
— We assembled a team of five players. It was the all-Russian tournament “Steel Will”, where Khabarovsk children with disabilities were invited by the President of the Football Federation for Persons with Cerebral Palsy Ivan Potekhin; the organizers covered all expenses for flights, accommodation and meals. At the initiative of the management of the adaptive school, sports uniforms with the logo of the team representing the Khabarovsk Territory were made for the children. It was the first time the boys competed and they are still impressed.
And one athlete in the field
The history of the physical education group began with just a single young Khabarovsk resident with cerebral palsy.
“The boy dreamed of playing football, and the child’s grandmother contacted the regional Ministry of Sports,” says Head of the resource center of the Khabarovsk regional sports-adaptive school of the Paralympic and Deaf Lyrics reserve Olesya Chernikova. — We, as representatives of a sports-adaptive school, were tasked with working on the question: is this sport in demand among children with such a diagnosis?
Here, social activists from the organization of parents of disabled children came to the rescue.
“We conducted a survey in the community of our social networks and found out that some mothers and fathers would happily send their children to football,” says Head of RO VORDI, member of the council for disabled people under the mayor of the city Dmitry Kolomiytsev. — There were more than a dozen applicants.
Then the specialists of the adaptive school had to cope with the main task – finding a room and a trainer for classes.
“Having studied the experience of other regions, we learned that teams of children with disabilities often support professional sports clubs,” Olesya Chernikova continues the story. — When we turned to our SKA-Khabarovsk for help, the club’s management met halfway, and already in July 2023 the section started working in the sports complex of the SKA Academy.
Those who barely walked are now running
At first, the organizers chose the Technician arena as a temporary training ground, but then both parents and children liked that they could practice in any weather, and it was easier to get here from any part of the city, so they decided to stay. Now about 10-12 young football players attend training twice a week (on Saturdays and Sundays).
“When I first took up the sports training of children with cerebral palsy, I dug through mountains of different literature, but I realized that there is no special methodology in this matter, you just need to take into account the physical capabilities of everyone,” notes Valentin Mikhailovich. – Well, the load they have to give, of course, is several times less than that of healthy athletes.
While we are talking, the training participants have time to warm up, perform various exercises with the ball, and then go out onto the field to devote twenty minutes to the game itself.
– Come on, dribble the ball, hit the goal, well done! – Dad Oleg supports his son Volodya from the stands, who scored a goal, and he waves his hand in response. “He’s the one who runs so quickly and skillfully now, but when they first came here, he could barely walk.”
“Football lessons not only develop children’s physical abilities, but also help them with socialization,” another father, Pavel, supports his neighbor on the bench in the waiting area. “They became friends, communicate, compete on the court, but after the competition they always shake hands.
According to the trainer, all participants have different capabilities according to the severity of the disease.
“Some can be trained for high-level competitions, while others come here only to get a lot of positive emotions, as well as develop motor skills and coordination,” sums up Valentin Milchin. — Of course, in order to assemble a full-fledged team and compete in tournaments, we still need to get athletes with approximately the same data, but we still have to work on this together with the adaptive school.
Anastasia Shubina, Khabarovsk Vesti
