| "My mates thought it was great fun that I joined in in my wheelchair. Dennis Wise isn't a patch on me when I'm in that thing!" Matthew is 15 years old and attends Hagley sports College.
My story is about how my disability did not stand in the way of my enjoyment of football. I set up a club called 'Sports R Us' where abled bodied and disabled young people could play sports' together.
Inside Lives was great!
I remember sitting in the playground watching my friends playing football and I could just jump up and join in the game. I couldn't because I was in a wheelchair. I'd been footy mad since I can remember, but in 1999 I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I had the tumour removed and then a course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I haven't walked since. For a while survival was the only thing on my mind, but as soon as I started to get better I wanted to play football again. I went back to school. Teachers told me I couldn't play in a wheelchair--I don't know whether this was for my own safety or for everyone else's. Whenever I hit someone with the wheelchair, they'd go crying to the teacher and I'd get told off, but then I'd just go straight back outside and do it again. My mates thought it was great fun that I joined in in my wheelchair. Dennis Wise isn't a patch on me when I'm in that thing! When I went to secondary school I decided to set up a sports club. It would be a club where everybody would be welcome, able-bodied and disabled, girls and boys. I wanted to set it up because there wasn't anything else for people like me. With the help of my teaching assistant and a Millennium award, I set up the club--we started with around 6 members and now we have 30. I called it Sports 'R'Us. Now, we've got a club where all the members are looking forward to each session, including me. Each time we go, we don't want it to end. It seems like a long time ago since I sat in my chair watching my friends playing football. Now we're all participants rather than spectators. | 
