“seeing ‘rugby’ and ‘wheelchair’ I’m just like, is this just gonna be the guys who I hated at school, in wheelchairs?”
The thing no one tells you about wheelchair rugby is that it’s loud. Turn on the Paralympics and descriptors like unbelievable, incredible, inspiring will be there in hordes. But God, I can’t hear myself think, doesn’t feature – this was, admittedly, my first thought as I crossed the door of a sports hall in Tollcross Leisure Centre last month, and was met with cheerful shouts and metallic crashes – an entirely joyful assault on the ears.
This cacophony was quickly forgotten, when Frances Pryce, Vice-Chair of Glasgow Wheelchair Rugby, welcomed me warmly, and immediately introduced me to the young people warming up merrily before practise.
They stare at me as I, unthinkingly, lower my chair to meet them – I forget, in an environment where wheelchairs are the default, that an elevator is still an oddity. But they are excited by it, and more excited, still, to show off their skills in the game.
This is the first practice of the evening. Initially a summer-venture from last year, the youth club injected a new lease of life into the club as a whole, which is now in its 13th year. “We managed to secure a little bit more money, to keep the lights on and make sure that we can commit to it.” Chris Dempster, Club Treasurer, tells me, as three boys, who look very similar, shout at each other gleefully.
“For the adults’ team you need to be disabled in three of your four limbs. For the kids’ team, if you’re competing you just need to have a disability, which means there’s a wider range of people who compete.”
The three boys who look so similar are family, it turns out. “They’re able-bods.” Frances says of two of them, who have no need of a chair, but come to play with their cousin.
“While we’ve got the space we’re never going to turn anyone away. And if it builds understanding, then I think there’s always a benefit to that.” Chris says, his words punctuated by the crashes of kids ramming into each other.
Frances tells me how the kids’ club came to be: “When Glasgow Schools said ‘Can you come and do an access day for additional support-needs children?’, the children that turned up were not physically disabled. To be honest I’m really amazed that they just love jumping into a chair. They jump into a chair like they jump onto a bike.”
The miscommunication appears a fortunate one, I think as I watch them practise together. Children who, without exposure, could easily have seen wheelchairs as something to avoid, alongside children who use them everyday. I try to say as much, but can’t find the words:
“They just see them as…”
“As normal things.” Frances supplies. “And one hopes that’ll continue. Come see the cage.” She moves towards the back of the hall.
“The cage?” I ask. How ominous it sounds.
“The equipment cage. It’s like the garage.” She clarifies, leading me into a dark room, bigger than it looks at first glance. Her phone rings and I’m left to take in the cage, and everything in it, on my own.
Wheelchairs are the kind of thing you rarely see more than one of at a time – usually rendered singular, distinct against a background of walking people. So to see entire stacks of them, stuffed into this cage, seats and wheels and spokes and spindles all jumbled up with rugby balls – the apparently specialist, the medical, pulled apart and stripped down to its mechanical origins, nestled companionably and indistinctly, alongside a load of completely innocuous sports balls – well, it was odd to say the least.
“It was set up by a physiotherapist in the Spinal Unit, Claire Lincoln.” Frances tells me, returning from her call. “She set it up with huge amounts of funding. I mean, she must’ve moved heaven and earth.” Frances tells me then about her own son, who’s a member of the team. “He was at the very first session at the club, and he was one of two players. And the other player never came back, didn’t like it at all. So he was the single player, at the beginning”. Operating at low capacity is a given, Frances tells me, in disability sport. Later that evening, there aren’t enough attendees for a full adult’s practice and they make do, two people short.
“We need more players.” Frances says easily. “Because it’s so niche and the variables are high, we are at a low ebb. This is not the lowest ebb we’ve been at. When they go on tournaments people will raise themselves, you don’t want to be anywhere near it, it’s vicious.” She laughs.
They don’t win many tournaments at the moment, she tells me. Their previous coach “ran a tight ship – they did win a lot of tournaments with that coach. They’ve got a new coach who’s more inclusive, and that means you don’t win as many.”
“Because there’s a mix of abilities?”
“Yes. [With] the previous coach the guys who would train here every week, perhaps have less facility, would get much less playing time on the tournaments. There was a buzz when the team won, of course, but there’s a pay off. There’s a different emphasis now – the emphasis is if you turn up to train, then you play. Each coach brings their particular emphasis and priorities.”
“There’d be no point in having a team if you weren’t going to compete”, Chris says, later. “We all want to play at the highest level that we can, but whilst recognising that there’s other reasons why people might turn up. One of the things that would help us in playing better is getting more adult players.”
“Would you ever go into partnership with universities?” I ask.
“Yes – we’ve talked about trying to get a nice pipeline for volunteers. We’re always looking to make new connections. If anyone thinks they could benefit from our club, as a player or as a volunteer, we’d love to hear from them. I don’t know what disability sports teams Glasgow Uni have, there used to be something that was cross-uni but that was many years ago.”
It’s an unlikely collection of players that make up the squad. Elliot, a student at Glasgow University, says “I came from dance, so I’d never engaged with this at all.” Steve*, a new start, adds: “the idea of rugby to me, like at school I just got obliterated. Seeing ‘rugby’ and ‘wheelchair’ I’m just like – is this just gonna be the guys who I hated at school, in wheelchairs?”
The talk turns to expenses. Tournaments are pricey, Frances tells me. “The thing is, it can look like we’ve got a ton of money – like, say we’ve got 30 thousand in the kitty – but it’ll be a thousand pounds if you send the squad down to play a tournament. We get into trouble, you know they’ll say ‘you can’t have that much money in a charity fund’ – if you buy a new wheelchair you’re eight, nine thousand on the chair, so if three people walked through the door.” She shrugs.
As is typical for disability-endeavours, funding is an issue. But the outlook is bright for the foreseeable future, Chris tells me, as practice finishes up: “we were very lucky to be one of a small number of organisations that were rewarded under the Henry Smith Fund, so for the next few years we’re stable, which is why we’ve got this capacity just now to look at spreading the word.”
“Do you get any government funding?”
“No. It often feels like it requires people to talk about themselves in a way that they wouldn’t want to. It’d be asking people what their feelings of loneliness are – people don’t want to do that here.” Chris says, as he transfers from his rugby chair to his usual one. “Especially folks who’ve been through the benefits system, they feel like that’s almost the currency they have, like in order to get attention you need to focus on the things you can’t do. Whereas the club and what we do here is so much more focused on what you can do, and building on that. Ultimately it just comes down to recognising the humanity in everything.”
Thank you to Glasgow Wheelchair Rugby for their hospitality. This article has been edited for concision.
*name changed
