Different By Design ®

LEWIS Reed (WAV) LTD sponsor Gold medal Boccia Winner

Motability’s Best Supplier 2011 Award Winning Vehicle Convertor company Lewis Reed (WAV) Ltd have sponsored Gold Medal Boccia winner Harry Thompson.

Disabled athlete Harry Thompson is celebrating scooping the player of the season award following a successful season of powerchair football.

The 16 year-old, from Mindrum, near Cornhill, only started playing in the Wheelchair Football Association (WFA) National League three years ago, yet he helped his team, Percy Hedley Panthers, to win this season’s WFA League One and League One Cup.

The team, which consists of six players with an age range of between 10 and 50, gained 37 points in the league by winning 13 out of 14 matches – easily beating eight other teams to the top spot.

As if this wasn’t enough, he was also awarded three trophies for the sport and the WFA League One ‘Player of the Season’ because he had gained the most man of the matches in the league throughout the year, having been awarded an amazing 10 from opposition coaches.

“I’m extremely proud of my achievements,” he smiled, admitting his favourite trophy was an impressive-looking gold one with a football on the top.

Although football is his favourite sport, Harry also participates in table cricket and boccia, the latter of which he is due to travel to Cardiff for- to partake in the Great British Boccia Championships.

Table cricket is an exciting game played on a table tennis table, whilst boccia is a target game using balls and requires extreme concentration and skills of the highest level. The sport is very popular worldwide and is also played in the Olympics.

Harry, who used to attend Berwick Middle School before moving to Percy Hedley High in Newcastle, has numerous medals for athletics too, and won Active Berwick Disabled Athlete of the Year for 2009 and 2010. Understandably, he is happy about his accomplishments.

“I’m happy about everything I’ve been awarded,” he said, “But my favourite trophies are my football ones. I love all the sports I do but football is definitely the one I prefer as my coaches are great and I get on very well with all my team members, despite the big age range and having only played with the Percy Hedley Panthers for one season.”

Although Harry has been participating in powerchair football for three years, he has only been playing with the Panthers for one. When he started the sport, he was a member of the team Northern Thunder for one year and then Northern Thunder Blues the next.

All three teams are part of Percy Hedley Sports Academy, in Killingworth. The academy, which was opened in 2005 to enable people with disablities to compete in sports, offers a wide range of different games ranging from wheelchair rugby to wheelchair basketball and Harry appreciates the amazing opportunities he has been given.

“I get on very well at my school and the academy. Everyone is always really friendly, and the sports I play there have helped me become more determined in everything I do.”

However, there is no gain without pain and Harry has to attend an hour and a half of football training a week down at the academy, and that is after an hour and half of boccia training beforehand. Furthermore, playing powerchair football means he had to travel almost 250 miles down to Kettering, in Northamptonshire, to compete in the WFA National League One for six weekends during the season. Where some people might have disliked the tedious travelling, Harry enjoyed it.

“I liked the travelling as it meant seeing new sights and places, and I loved going to Kettering. But I also liked the socialising – travelling with my team mates was great fun.”

Most importantly, his mum supports him all the way. Michelle Thompson said: “I am so, so proud of Harry. For someone with his disabilities, to achieve what he has is just exceptional.

“He is extremely determined and I’d say he was pretty much fearless! The determination he has really helps him to deal with his everyday life, which is far from easy. His coaches, as well as his team members, are great.”
Powerchair football is a relatively new sport for wheelchair users, and kicked off in the north east in 2003, when Northern Thunder coach Allen Harrison read an article about how the sport had become popular in Japan. It is now a rapidly growing sport and England even has it’s own National Powerchair football squad, who are playing in the World Cup in Paris later this year.

For more information on the WFA and powerchair football, go to www.thewfa.org.uk