Batman Brian

A Blog by Brian Carson 29 June 2023

All opinions are my own.

Background

Just over 18 months ago I participated in a pilot scheme to introduce a weekly walking football session for People With Parkinons’s (PWP). This pilot ran for 10 weeks and was a joint venture between Glasgow Life and Parkinson’s UK Scotland. The sessions were held at the Toryglen National Indoor Football Centre.

As reported in a previous blog, this was a great success and it was agreed to continue these sessions on a permanent basis. Glasgow Life issued a very detailed report on the structure of the sessions. The content of the sessions was created in collaboration with Parkinson’s Specialist Physiotherapists to ensure it was tailored for PWP. The report described how the sessions were adapted during the pilot to provide maximum enjoyment and benefit for participants and how they continued to develop as the sessions progressed to maintain and improve these criteria. The report also contains details of quantifiable improvements in mobility and mood in participants over the ten week duration.

Earlier this year The Celtic FC Foundation joined this partnership and are funding these sessions for 18 months. This has given the sessions an additional boost and the participant numbers are steadily growing.

These weekly sessions are very well structured and organised and are always supported by 4 or 5 coaches some of whom are volunteer coaches.

Weekly Sessions

A typical session consists of the following:

1. A dynamic warm-up including stretching and movement.
2. Drills and coaching sessions. These are varied weekly and focus on various aspects of the game and some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s. eg movement and balance, situational awareness (where the individual is on the pitch and where team mates and opponents are), confidence and voice projection eg talking loudly to team mates when giving and receiving the ball, plus many other aspects.
3. A game of walking football for 20-30 minutes where the lessons from item 2 above are put into practice. There may be two separate games depending on numbers.
4. A warm down.
5. A get together over tea/coffee for some social interaction. (and friendly abuse 🤪)

Note: The number of coaches is particularly significant for items 1, 2 and 3 as this allows for some individual 1 to 1 support to be provided for participants where the severity of their symptoms and range of movement requires this.

These sessions are varied, challenging and great fun to take part in. As if that was not enough they also provide physical, mental and social benefits to the Parkinson’s participants which helps us to manage the condition.

Training Update

Over the last few weeks the focus of the sessions shifted slightly as we had entered a Parkinson’s team into an event that meant we would be playing against non Parkinson’s teams. More importantly we would be playing strictly to the rules of walking football, and with an official referee who would enforce these rules. This in no way removed any enjoyment from the sessions, apart from the abuse I got everytime I started running, but it did give us a bit more focus on playing as a team and strictly to the rules of the game.

The Event

On the Saturday 24th June the largest one day walking football event in the world was held at Glasgow Green, The Walking Football Scotland 2023 Walking Football Festival.

The event was held at the Glasgow Green Football Centre and was a mixture of competitive competitions and a non-competitive festival featuring 76 teams an almost 800 players

The categories and winners, where applicable are listed below:

Over 50’s Scottish Cup – Pollok Utd

Over 60’s Scottish Cup – Ayr Utd

Over 65’s Scottish Cup – North Lanarkshire Council

Over 70’s Scottish Cup – North Lanarkshire Council

Over 40’s Women’s Scottish Cup – Braehead FC

Over 40’s Non-Competitive Festival (Peter Collins Fair Play Award) – Chest Heart Stroke Scotland

A full report of the day is available at the link below:

https://www.walkingfootballscotland.org/news/2023/6/27/wfs-scottish-cup-amp-festival-2023

Our Parkinson’s Team played in the Over 40’s Non-Competitive Festival.

All of the players (Almost 800)

The “Competition”

We were in a group with 4 other teams and played a 20 minute game against each opponent. Originally we were scheduled to play 5 games of 15 minutes duration but a late withdrawal of one team from our group necessitated this change.

All games were six a side and we had eleven players available who have Parkinson’s. One of the volunteer coaches joined the squad as a second goalkeeper, therefore we could change out each team at the mid point of each fixture.

A 20 minute game of walking football does not sound too taxing but we had to consider our various ages, levels of mobility and fitness, and the need to manage medication routines. Therefore having the flexibility provided by this number of players was a necessity, and that is without factoring in the temperature on the day which at times reached the mid 20’s centigrade.

The games were billed as non competitive but once you get on the pitch you want to play well, both individually and as a team, and you want to win. The adrenalin kicks in and before you know it you are exhausted.

All of our games were played on a caged or enclosed pitch, surrounded by a backboard. The ball can be played against the backboard which can be an advantage to “get around” opposing players. The downside of this enclosure is that the ball never leaves the playing area, i.e. it is always in play, therefore there is no down time during games to get a breath

The size of the pitch in my head after 10 minutes play

Results

Our results were not what we hoped for but in the cold light of day I now think we did very well and played some good football at times.

We were well beaten by Motherwell FC CT and Active Scotland who were both very experienced and mobile teams. We had a draw (4-4) with Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, and we narrowly lost our final game to Giffnock SC Auld Timers (4-3).

Ken (Ibrahimovich) celebrating a goal 👍

On the plus side we had fantastic day playing football and having fun as a team, some for the first time and for others a chance to do something we thought was way in our past and no longer possible.

We certainly all got a buzz from being part of this event and our group chat was on overdrive well into the following day as we reflected on the experience and shared our thoughts about what we had achieved.

Back Row L to R

Tam – (David Beckham) up and down the right wing all day

Ken – (Zlatan Ibrahimovich) left midfielder can score from anywhere

Stevie – (Tommy Mclean) pocket sized dribbling winger

Ricky – (Pep Guardiola) Super coach and motivator. Quote of the day “shoot from anywhere their keeper is as blind as a bat”

Brian (me) – (Frank Lampard) box to box utility player, unfortunately more wine boxes than penalty boxes.

James – (Alan Rough/Gandalf) Enthusiastic goalkeeper who threw himself at everything, “you shall not pass”.

Eric- (Lubomir Moravcik) Midfield genius who sees things on the pitch that us mere mortals don’t

Brian (not me) – (Gordon McQueen) silky skills no pace (non of us have any) but plays with his head, not literally

Drew – (Maurice Johnston) Lead coach with an identity crisis, blue nose in a green tracksuit. Thinks he is Linford Christie at the training sprints.

Front Row L to R

David – (Bobby Charlton) energetic midfielder who covers every blade of grass

Jim – (Scottish Maradona) Volunteer coach and brilliant extra goalkeeper for the day

Joy – (Gerd Muller) Poacher and goal scorer extraordinaire

Duncan – (Duncan Ferguson) Solid, skilful and takes no S*** even from his own team

Davie – (Franz Beckenbauer) super sweeper who organises the team from the back but likes the sound of his own voice too much! 🤣

Thank You

Thank you to Glasgow Life, Parkinson’s UK Scotland and the Celtic FC Foundation for organising and supporting these weekly sessions.

Thanks also to the coaches for your time and patience. You push us hard but you always make it fun. This incudes volunteer coaches Russell and Peter who are not in the photograph as they were playing for their regular teams on the day.

The support from the touchline from everyones family and friends was fantastic and kept us going, you were all so positive and encouraging

Finally a big thank you to the Celtic FC Foundation for providing the kit we wore on the day. Not only did it make us look like a team, but more importantly it made us feel part of something and helped us to play as team.

What Next?

In October we have a Parkinson’s Walking Football Festival taking place in Toryglen with teams from around the UK taking part. This is not on the scale of the Festival but hopefully we will have several teams entering. The anticipation is building already.

In the meantime the weekly sessions will continue at Toryglen and hopefully the numbers will continue to increase as we spread the word on the benefits and fun to be had at these sessions.

If you have Parkinson’s and would like to try walking footbal come along to the Toryglen Regional Football Centre in Glasgow Thursday’s at 11am. You are guaranteed a warm welcome.

End