A powerchair football squad for children with severe physical disabilities has been awarded £1,000 from Persimmon Homes Teesside’s Building Futures fund.

Middlesbrough Powerchair Football Club will receive £1,000 from the initiative, which is launched in partnership with Team GB, the British Olympic Association.

The club currently has 24 players with varying physical disabilities as well as some which are life limiting.

Jennifer Landess, fundraiser for Middlesbrough Powerchair Football Club, said: “We are beyond grateful that Persimmon Homes have chosen our club to support. 

“As a result of Covid-19, we are having to spend extra costs on venue hire so that we can run smaller training groups due to many of our players being extremely vulnerable. As well as this, the funding will help go towards training an extra coach for these sessions.

“Each month we have at least one person contact the club to join. If we were lucky enough to be provided with further funding, we would be able to purchase extra chairs as well as possibly being able to take our team to compete both nationally and internationally.”

Powerchair football is the only fast paced team sport that people with a severe disability can play –making it such an important club for so many young people in the area.

The Building Futures scheme aims to support community groups working with under-18s across three categories – education & arts, health, and sport.