When I was 14, a good school friend of mine began to ask me to come to his weekly football club.
I initially resisted, because I had a fear of strangers borne from a lot of discrimination in my earlier years due to my autism.
I also didn't much care for football at the time. My exposure to playing was tainted by abuse from other kids and my exposure to professional football was a load of angry, shouty men who tended to fall over and cry if they stubbed their toe.
I resisted for a year before he finally managed to convince me to turn up to a training session, having recently turned 15.
The place I arrived at was a run-down astroturf pitch next to a clubhouse and I approached anxiously, trailing my friend.
Then the coach found me, and where I expected a stern and single track-minded man akin to an old PE teacher I'd had, I found a really kind, gentle man teaching a group of kids who, after being typically rowdy and energetic, were happy and at ease where they were.
Considering that it was a mixed-age disability squad, and that a lot of them had been through the same abuse as me, this was beyond surprising - it was inspiring.
I quickly became accustomed to the group and relaxed, looking forward to the Monday evening training sessions - and especially to the monthly tournaments that the various disability coaches had set up themselves as there was no league for disability football.
I developed a sense of trust and camaraderie that I'd never had before, because I’d never been in a team like this...a team that was so innocently, but also understandingly, accepting.
I played goalkeeper as the team went strong for year-after-year and stayed with the team until I was 17, before my coach came up to me and floated the idea of being a coach myself. He said there was a Level 1 QCF award coming up and even offered the club to pay for it.
Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity and became a qualified Level 1 football coach later that year. I went on to do a module in coaching disability football and three years later I'm still coaching my team. I also branched out and taught a team of U12 girls for a year.
When I was 19, I received word that the local Nottinghamshire CFA development officer Sara was offering an opportunity to become a referee in a new monthly tournament for the disability teams I’d previously played with and against.
Naturally, I said yes and trained to become a referee specific for that league. Since then I have also refereed for many school tournaments - including the School Games at the University of Nottingham and I still referee today.
When I first started out at my club, I was an isolated recluse with a small group of friends and no future goals for myself. I couldn't handle basic social interactions and didn't have the confidence to do so much as talk, let alone work, with others - or teach.
Football itself didn't help me - I don't think it helps many people at all by itself - but the people that engaged around the sport, who drove the development of people within the sport, who gave their own time to enrich somebody else's - they made a huge difference.
Without them and the opportunities they gave me, there's a very good chance I would be at home, applying for filler jobs and sleeping out the day.
I wouldn’t be at University now, working towards a degree in paramedic science. I wouldn't have the experience or the people around that I do now.
And trying not to sound overly dramatic, without the personal development that working in and with football gave me, there's a very real possibility that my aspirations might’ve just stayed dreams.
I still coach and referee football. It's the least I could do to say thank you.
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