Club takes part in disability football festival

The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation took a team of girls from Vale School in Northumberland Park to Manchester City’s Etihad Campus for this year’s Premier League and BT Disability Football Festival on Tuesday – an event which aims to inspire disabled people through sport.

The festival, which was hosted by BT presenters Abi Griffiths and Jake Humphrey, saw participants from 23 Premier League and English Football League clubs take part in a skills challenge and a pan-disability football tournament.

The Premier League and BT’s disability programme is delivered by 25 clubs, including Tottenham Hotspur, with the Foundation delivering a series of projects in the Club’s local communities, aimed at creating opportunities for people with disabilities, giving them access to more talent pathways and inspiring them through sport.

Since the Premier League and BT Disability programme was launched in September, 2016, clubs have engaged over 23,400 disabled people and delivered over 3,700 inclusive sessions. One of the most successful projects delivered by the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation is an all-girls physical education session that runs every Tuesday at Vale School, which sees 12 girls taking part each week.

Gareth Jones, Senior Equalities and Inclusion Co-ordinator at the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, said: “The funding we receive from the Premier League and BT Disability programme has enabled us to inspire more disabled people through the power of sport. For many of our participants, the weekly PE session we run is their only access to sport, and over the past year, we have seen a real improvement in their confidence, health and wellbeing and their football skills. The festival has been a great opportunity for our all girls team to put their skills into practice and socialise with participants from other clubs.”