Meet Under The Clock – Unite for Access – Fan Focus: Adam Sevenoakes

Meet Under The Clock – Unite for Access – Fan Focus: Adam Sevenoakes

In this issue of the newsletter we speak with an incredible and inspiring young cherries fan, Adam Sevenoaks. Adam now 17 was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at a young age but does not let that stop him living life to the fullest, dragging his wonderful, dedicated parents, Malcolm & Mary along in his wake. He’s a very bright, cheerful, and articulate young man, a bit of a statto and always happy to talk football. You can often find Adam in the DC lounge before games, with a big smile on his face and a mischievous twinkle in his eye – make sure to go and say hello.

As well as being a fan of AFCB Adam also plays football for the AFCB Warriors Powerchair Football team and was happy to tell us all about powerchair football:

Adam, can you please explain what powerchair football is?

Yes, basically it is based on normal football and played in powered wheelchairs. They are specialised wheelchairs with a bumper on the front of the chair for you to hit the ball. They used to use car tyres on normal power chairs but as the game has evolved it is now a bit more sophisticated with specially designed wheelchairs with proper bumpers. We have 4 players on a team, a goalie, 2 wingers and a central player. The rules are almost the same as normal football, but you have added rules like 2 on 1, which means that 2 people from 1 team can’t be within 3 metres of 1 player from the opposition team. Also 3 players from the defending team can’t go into their penalty area to defend the ball because that would be 3 in the box. Powerchair football is widespread and there are World Cups and Euros tournaments in addition to national and regional leagues.

How often do you get to play?

We train every Friday at Purbeck sports centre (Wareham), and we play 5 weekends a year in Nottingham in the National League and 5 times per year in Crawley or Hatfield, these are normally on a Sunday as part of the regional league. In the national league, there are 2 divisions, the Premier league, which is the really good teams and the Championship, which Bournemouth are in, each league has 12 teams. In the regional games there are 3-6 teams in each division.

Manchester City, Manchester Utd, West Brom, Aston Villa all have Powerchair football teams, so the big clubs do have them, and the leagues will continue to grow.

How do these games get refereed? Does some poor person stand in the centre and hope to not get run over?

Yes!! (Cue some laughter at that one!) They are qualified referees; they have to do a referee course associated with the Wheelchair Football Association (WFA).

How long have you been playing it now?

Since 2016. We saw an advert for Powerchair football, and it sounded like fun. It was at Victoria school in Poole, the team used to be called Wessex Warriors and then in about 2018, AFC Bournemouth took over. Hannah Powis, the Supporter Liaison Officer at the club, used to be the coach of the Powerchair team.

When is the next league game?

In April, we will be going back up to Nottingham and will play one of the West Brom teams they have 5 different teams, and their squad has England players. One of the England players has said he supports Bournemouth [Gayle – we’ll have to steal him away for our team then!]

What age range are the team?

It’s unlimited. You can have youngsters playing with adults all on the same team. In our team we have people from age 13/14 up to those in their 30’s. We enjoy it and the dynamics are good, it’s really nice to have that mix.

Talk to me about AFC Bournemouth matchdays for you as wheelchair user attending games…

It’s enjoyable, we all enjoy it, it’s fun to watch them play and there is a family feel to it but in my opinion this has changed since Eddie left. It’s good though that it is something we can do together as a family.

For a start it is good that there are so many suitable car parking spots so that we can park in the stadium and not have to walk too far. Getting out of the stadium though is awful!

I like the raised platform in the main stand, it’s good that they have it. The lifts are ok, big enough for the wheelchair, we just need more of them! We always use the platform; I don’t like Row A, it’s too busy. There are also issues with other fans, they walk in front of you or just stand there and won’t move out of the way. It’s frustrating and makes it stressful.

The changing places toilet outside the stadium that has the hoist in is very useful, it would be good to see more of these at the new stadium, perhaps one in each stand.

The minibuses for away games are really good, 9/10 times when we have asked to go on the rocket we have been able to and when we haven’t been successful then the club try to ensure you get to go the next time.

I enjoy chatting with Justin in the club shop; it was a bit difficult when they did the adaptive clothing for me because they don’t have a hoist so we couldn’t try them on. They did adaptive trousers and a coat which I thought was a good thing, but this is something that needs to be publicised more. People need to know that they can and will do this for you. There’s a lot of people who do not speak up to say that they need this adaptive clothing and part of that could be because they don’t know that this service is available because it isn’t widely publicised. The adaptive coat that they have done for me is really helpful in the winter when it’s a bit cold.

Thank you to Adam for taking the time to talk to Gayle about Powerchair football and his experience as a wheelchair user attending matches. We had a great discussion on what the club do well, what could be improved, which are things mainly prevented by the infrastructure, and what we would like to see in the new stadium. Thank you also to Mary & Malcolm for facilitating the chat.

Upcoming Key Dates

Board Meeting: 6 March 2024
AGM (can be attended by paid up members): 23 May 2024 (tentative)

Until the next time…

We hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter and remember, if you have any suggestions for items to include in the future, please drop one of the Board members a line. We hope to see you at forthcoming fixtures.

UTCIAD!!