On a cold and damp Monday a couple of weeks ago, members of the Foundation Team and the Foundation’s adult disability team players, had a very special day.
Paula Stainton, Foundation Manager, said “We are delighted to finally be able to let the cat out of the bag so to speak about our visit with Jake Smith and BBC Morning Live a few weeks ago, which featured on Wednesday 5th March at 11.15am. Watch back for yourself on iPlayer HERE.
For lovers of the series Traitors, eagle-eyed viewers will recognise Jake as one of the winners and will remember him as the first person to spot a Traitor in Linda right from episode one.
Jake also confirmed he has Cerebral Palsy during one of the more physically taxing challenges, and it was for this reason that BBC Morning Live featured him to raise awareness of hidden disability, his positive can do approach and how his love for football changed him and gave him direction in life at a young age.”
The Foundation were given this opportunity via CP Sport and asked to host the BBC, with support from the University of York, York Sport team. Everything was arranged very quickly, and without much notice as if often the case for these things, to secure both their pitch and their Futsal arena so that players from the Foundation’s Cerebral Palsy football team and their Adult pan disability team had space to train and play, but also to invite two other fabulous organisations working within the disability football arena to join them.
Little Victories in the Community came from Hull to take part and brought several young players who enjoyed some frame football coaching inside and a number of adult players from Leeds Powerchair football wowed with their incredible dodgem style skills.
Jake spoke to everyone and took part in all the sessions, even having a go in one of the Powerchairs and confirmed it’s definitely a lot harder than it looks.
The Foundation players enjoyed a coaching session outside before heading inside to put on a display for the children, to showcase what opportunities there could be as they grow up.
Finally, everyone got together to interview Jake. He answered countless questions about how he started playing football, the level he played at including England CP Football and how sport gave him skills for life and enabled him to gain confidence and have access to unique opportunities.
And for anyone else who started off their year gripped to the latest season of Traitors, as many staff in the Foundation did, they didn’t miss the chance to ask him a few related questions and to find out what it was like to film, how he knew that Linda was a traitor and of course.. is Claudia Winkelman as lovely as she comes across on screen.
On behalf of the Foundation’s Inclusion Team; huge thanks to Joe McKechnie and all of the players from their teams who gave up their time on the day, to the team at York Sport, to the BBC cameramen and Morning Live team, and mostly to Jake for a very memorable Monday!
