‘A friend once told me that if you want a community institution to work, it is not buildings you need; what you really need is nutters.
‘He would probably get sacked for using that word today, but I knew what he meant. People who are crazily committed not to themselves, but to others.
‘People who give mad amounts of time to help those around them. People who inject so much enthusiasm into what they do, not just on one day of the year but every day, that they start to attract other nutters to help them.’
LAST September, I was invited to attend a training session with Cumann Spóirt an Phobail (CSP) Football for all Disability on the Ballymurphy Road in west Belfast.
The coaches and players were on the 4G pitch at the back of Corpus Christi Youth Centre where it sits below neighbouring Corrigan Park.
It was a beautiful sunny Wednesday evening – one of the best evenings I spent during the pandemic. The age range of the team was 14 to 51.
After interviewing a couple of the coaches, the players insisted I take part in the end of session match. It finished in a draw and they decided to have a penalty shoot-out.
Not one for boasting about these things, you understand, but I only scored the winning penalty!
I had the back slapped off me and was high-fived probably 20 times.
Their disabilities range from physical to learning difficulties to mental illness. Alongside CSP, St James’ Swifts is another club in west Belfast that is ‘inclusive of all abilities’.
For the players of CSP Football For All, lockdown was absolutely horrendous. When their 4G pitch was off limits, the club was supplied with brand new iPads by a cross-border funding scheme.
While the iPads were welcome, it wasn't what they needed. All they desired was that one hour of football every Wednesday night with their team-mates.
Being outside, playing a sport, any sport, being part of a team, understanding that you are part of something that is greater than you, and knowing that you are a vital cog in the wheel.
That is medicine.
During lockdown, some of the players’ mental health suffered, some of them put on weight and lost their way. Coaches would drop by to their houses just to check in with their parents or guardians to see how they were doing.
I maintain that more could have been done at governmental level to help these players better navigate the last year of their lives.
In the interests of their mental well-being, the Corpus Christi Youth Centre should have been opened for that one hour on a Wednesday evening long before the padlock was eventually and belatedly removed.
We can’t begin to fathom how 60 minutes in a week has the capacity to transform lives.
But the Health Minister and the CMO didn’t make allowances for them, while others didn’t make themselves heard above the ‘Stay at Home’ message.
On Monday, I got a call from a friend Kevin McVeagh, who is part of the CSP coaching staff, to tell me they had won the Rath Community Cup the previous day.
It was their first competitive game in over a year. In the seven-a-side tournament, hosted at Three Mile Water, the battling pride of Cumann Spóirt an Phobail defeated Belfast’s ‘Big Two’ – Glentoran and Linfield – along the way to raising the cup.
“It was the expression on their faces," beamed Kevin.
"You had to tell them that they’d won on penalties because they weren’t sure of the penalty count. Once they realised they’d won it was incredible. It was just an outburst of pure joy.
“I’ve been around football for a long, long time and I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like that.
"But the thing is, it’s not the winning for them, it’s just being out on a pitch. They are so keen – keener than the average semi-professional. They want to know when the next match is and will they be playing?
"They would ask: 'Did you like my goal?' 'I scored two goals, Kevin, what do you think of that?' They ask you questions you normally wouldn’t be asked. And I like that."
Last Saturday, the Oak Leaf Lions Special Olympics Club was finally launched. The guys – the ‘nutters’ - behind the ‘sport for all’ club weren't derailed by the pandemic – it just delayed them.
Young athletes of all different abilities took to the field at the Dungiven Sports Centre.
It was a day where perhaps some parents realised that the barriers to sports participation aren’t as daunting as first feared. It was probably a deeply emotional and joyous day for them too.
But it takes ‘nutters’ like Brian McGuigan who is also involved with Titanic Tigers in Belfast to make great things happen.
At St Malachy’s OB Youth Football Club in north Belfast, they have their own fair share of ‘nutters’.
Kenny Bell has about 40 jobs at the club – goalkeeping coach, committee member, development officer, co-ordinates the Girls section. The list goes on and on.
His latest venture has been starting up a ‘Football for All’ team, aged 7 to 14.
A couple of Monday nights ago, the team posted their first picture on the WhatsApp group.
Six coaches, 13 kids, some of whom probably thought that they would never get the chance to be part of a team.
Now they are. Each of them integral and equal members of the team. Their team.
There must be an incredible sense of pride associated with this, both for the kids and their parents.
We are in the middle of Volunteer Week 2021.
For those who coach kids and adults of all abilities, they are the real ‘nutters’ in our communities.
They masquerade as average men and women. They are anything but.
