Sport: Frame Football, Horses, Swimming and Proving People Wrong

If physiotherapy is my job, sport is where I collect my bonuses. Pretty much every sport I do doubles as therapy — but don't tell me that, because I'm just having fun 🤩.

Frame football ⚽️

I play football in my walking frame, and I'm a proud frame footballer with my school club but I started my journey with Little Victories in the Community. I've been to Cerebral Palsy football camps run by Ambleside Junior Football Club and Coventry University, where I get to see my SDR buddies (we met through surgery and stayed best friends), won my first trophy at a football awards day, and played beat-the-goalie and 5v5 until my legs gave up.

My favourite football story: at a mainstream one-day camp with Footballerz on very soggy grass, I was the only kid there with cerebral palsy. I made friends fast, found my own way to join every drill, and ended the day as Captain for the final match 🎉.

I'm also a match-day veteran — I've been mascot for Goole AFC (treated like a king 👑), watched a full 90 minutes riveted at my first proper match at Sheffield United, and yes, I support the team my Grandad doesn't. "You snooze you lose," said Daddy 😂.

Horse riding 🐴

I've ridden since I was little and it's one of my favourite happy places. It started as hippotherapy — brilliant for my hips and core — but honestly it's just riding now: raising trot (a serious workout), learning canter (fast = best), hacking out in summer, and pony club days where I learned to care for the ponies too. I've started lobbying for a horse of my own. Daddy is holding firm. For now 😬.

Swimming 💦

Swimming is genuinely hard for me — Helpy Hand doesn't pull as strongly as my right arm, my muscles contract when I get excited (which is always, in a pool), and floating takes core strength I've had to build from scratch. Epilepsy once took swimming lessons away from me for nearly a year.

Which is why December 2025 deserves capitals: I SWAM INDEPENDENTLY FOR THE FIRST TIME. NO FLOATS. Most kids get there younger, but the way my body fights me made this one a mountain — and Mummy cried happy tears in public, again 😭. Thank you Lewis at You Can Swim and Aquastars Swim Academy for getting me there. Since then I've done two solid weeks of daily school swimming lessons alongside my classmates and kept increasing my distance.

On wheels and beyond

• Charity bike rides on my trike with the Rotary Club of Howden — six laps of the village and 3.85km at my best, defeated only by a blister 🙈.
• A mini triathlon with The Brownlee Foundation — swim, bike, run. I managed everything but the last stretch of the run and crossed the finish line to my classmates chanting my name 🥇.
• Go-karting, rock climbing, laser tag, kayaking — birthday parties have taken me everywhere from Teamworks Karting to Rock Up Hull to Welton Waters Adventure Centre, and my friends' families always make sure I can join in. (Laser tag down steep ramps in brand-new splints: extreme fun. Good job Mummy was supervising and not Daddy.)
• Running club at school in my frame — my friends pick the grass out of my wheels when it gets soft, and I once talked my physio into letting me run a sports day race with a freshly broken metatarsal. I ran my heart out, then handed out winner stickers.

The point

Every one of these started with someone wondering whether I'd manage. The answer is always the same: let me give it a go, in my own way, with the right support — and watch me 💪🏼