Bootle Bucks Inclusion FC is a club offering football coaching to local, challenged children who have little or no access to mainstream football.
All ages and abilities are welcomed to their sessions where all of their coaches are FA qualified as well as First Aid trained and have a current DBS certificate.
But how did a club with an initial membership of 16 grow to over 200 active members, and become of the biggest inclusion football clubs in the country?
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From the ground up to a league of their own
Inclusion Officer John Doran said: “We set up in 2018 by myself and four of my colleagues: John Rice, John Callaghan, Keith Woodhouse, and Gareth Ace, all long-term supporters of Bootle Bucks FC.
“We realised that there was a shortage of facilities and clubs, where children with disabilities or other barriers who wanted to play mainstream football were marginalised.
“So we came up with the idea to hire a local school gym, sports hall, put the word out amongst the people we knew through our jobs, and we’ve been going for eight years now.”
What started with just kicking the ball about turned into something much more.
He added: “We recruited a few volunteer coaches from parents and other friends, and we started to do some structured training.
“We found that since we started our little satellite league on a Saturday morning, we have 150 players in total.
“In this league, there’s around 14 teams, 11 of which are teams that we’ve split up into different ability bands.
“We’ve even managed to attract other teams, such as Rainford Rangers and AFC Knowsley, to set up their own inclusive sections, all of whom come and play with us on a Saturday.
“A really big boost for us is the inclusion of St Vincent’s school for the visually impaired, who send their school team along too.
“They play with bell balls, some players will have guides on the pitch running with them.
“We use special forms of communication, for example, if a player is taking a corner, the players clap in the box.
“Our players also play on Wednesday evenings every month in the LCFA ability counts league, where we are represented at all ages: 8’s, 10’s, 12’s, 14’s and 16’s.
“Every Wednesday is dedicated to a particular age group, where we play against Liverpool, Everton and others.
“We’ve developed an adult section as well, with about 50 adults with disabilities playing for us now.
“There are kids out there with other health reasons but still want to be part of a team, we don’t turn anyone away.
“We cater our provisions to whatever kids or adults want to play.”
“They wouldn’t get the same opportunities elsewhere”
Talking to some of the children’s parents (who wished to stay anonymous), one mother said: “My child plays for St Vincent, and because he’s got a vision impairment, he couldn’t play mainstream football, it had to be inclusion.
“He’s a lot more confident and happier; he just loves playing football, it’s just a very good option for him.
“They wouldn’t get the same opportunities elsewhere so it’s nice for them to be together.”
Another parent said: “My child has autism and struggled in a mainstream team.
“My friend who recommended the club asked me to come along four and half year ago, and we’ve never looked back.
“My child loves the way that a lot of the children are similar and that they have all been given a chance, something they weren’t given in the football world before.”
Darren Miller, teacher at Saint Vincent, brings his team along to participate in the league.
He said: “At St Vincent, we push sports quite a lot, because it’s apparent to a lot of people that people with disability can’t get into sports as easily as the average Joe.
“It’s good to have this sort of thing here for people who can’t get involved in mainstream sports, and they’re loving here.
“Every season we’re getting bigger and bigger, and better.”
Bootle Bucks coach, Mark Bullen, said: “You can’t put a price on it.
“I’m running up and down the line like I’m playing, just seeing the kids smiling is all you need.
“Some of the players can now go into mainstream teams and match the players there, as their confidence has grown.”
More than a club
The club’s ambitions extend beyond the pitch, aiming to make a positive difference in as many lives as possible—not just those of its players
Mr Doran said: “It’s become more than football, we are now raising funds to build our own education hub where our players can get qualifications in coaching and refereeing.
“This will allow them to get some employability, and some kind of income stream.
“We are helping a lot of parents who have battled throughout their life to get their children diagnosed or support/transport for school, to make their children independent until they are 17/18 years old.
“We hope that the education hub will hopefully help them obtain qualifications to become employable as most of them don’t have qualifications or career paths themselves.”
Bootle Bucks FC’s reach extends beyond England; they travelled to compete in tournaments in Belfast in 2019 and 2020, becoming the first non–Northern Irish club to come away with a trophy
They also sent a team of adult players with additional needs to Italy, where they have since competed in three tournaments.
The club also took a group of younger players to an Italian school to take part in adaptive P.E. and a radio broadcast with local schools.
Mr Doran added: “After many years of going to tournaments in the UK and Europe, we are know at a stage where we are the biggest inclusion football club in the country.”
A model to be used nationwide
Bootle Bucks have come a long way since their foundation, and with that progress comes growing ambition.
Mr Doran said: “We understand people’s fears but we ask them to take a leap by coming to visit us and see the enjoyment on the children and adult’s faces of playing football along with the really strong support network the parents have developed.
“I guarantee they will go away with smiles on their faces, and they’ll want to be back next week to get their kids involved.
“The long term goal is to keep the same ethos, not to become elite.
“We don’t want to concentrate too much on winning.
“We know everyone wants to win, especially in Liverpool, but the importance thing is the enjoyment.
“I’d really love our model to be used nationwide so a lot of other mainstream clubs are not scared of starting inclusion football teams, and including a lot of these kids and adults in their football provision.”
(Featured image by Alex Parker)
