But who are Disability Sports Dorset? They are the same team who started up and run the highly successful Dorset Destroyers Wheelchair Rugby Club.
“We started running a wheelchair rugby club and soon found that so many disabled people in Dorset wanted to have access to other sports. So we set up Disability Sports Dorset on Friday Nights, to open up more opportunities for sport” said Nick Coombs Chairman of Disability Sports Dorset and the Destroyers “It’s been very successful and we currently run wheelchair tennis, wheelchair badminton, wheelchair self-defence and a disability shooting club at our base Rossmore Leisure Centre. But we’re looking to get more sports lined up over the next year”
The £9,500 will go towards buying 15 multi use wheelchairs which will open up opportunities to start wheelchair dancing, wheelchair rugby 7’s, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair netball and so many more sports.
And it will also mean that sports like wheelchair tennis can grow, as every time wheelchair tennis has been run it is oversubscribed, so we’ve run out of chairs.
Disability Sports Dorset is aiming to become a Charity and to eventually build a Centre of Disability Sporting Excellence in Poole which will cater for the South of England but specifically Dorset. It is a long-term plan, but we’ve started by getting the sports up and running to prove that there is demand from the disabled community for this.
The aim is to have 2 large sports halls which will have full 4K capacity to show live matches on you tube/facebook, a fully accessible gym where all equipment is at a suitable height and with access to physiotherapists, a swimming pool with ramp to access the pool rather than the traditional hoist into the water, athletics track, an area that is suitable for an indoor gun club, outdoor football pitch for Blind Football, Walking Football, lots of parking spaces and a treatment area.
It will also be a community led centre and the upper floor will be for able bodied to use and there will be a café and room for meetings/small events.
www.disabilitysportsdorset.weebly.com
Contact Nick on 01202 684048 or text 07747 586006
E mail [email protected]
