One participant who has benefitted from Huddersfield Town Foundation’s Terriers Ability programmes, is Mattie Kavanagh.
Mattie was born with a hole in his heart and spent nearly three months in the Intensive Care Unit in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. He was on oxygen for the first ten months of his life and also had to be tube fed. In that time, he had three lots of open heart surgery, the first being when he was only a few weeks old.
Mattie's mum, Kate, said...
“All of this has never stopped Mattie, and he leads a very busy and fulfilling life. It is important for Mattie to keep his heart fit, so we have always made sure that he exercises regularly and now he plays sport most days. Football is his first love, though closely followed by table tennis and he has made some lovely friends through his sporting activities. He is just mad keen on sport, and we are keen for him to stay as active as possible.
“The school holiday camps are a godsend as his dad and I both work full time, so it means that he has somewhere to let off some steam and socialise with his friends in the holidays. It helps his independence as well as communication and social skills and he has the opportunity to mix with lots of different people. The more often he has attended the camps, the more confident he has become.”
The Foundation run a number of programmes under the Terriers Ability banner, that aim to provide those with additional needs, learning disabilities and difficulties with an opportunity to play sport, meet and make new friends, all in an environment that is safe, where our participants can thrive. Our Inclusive Holiday Camps, funded through Kirklees Council’s Short Break Fund offers such opportunity.
When asked if our Terriers Ability programme has helped Mattie, Kate said:
“Absolutely. His football skills have improved immensely, and he has built up his confidence. At the beginning he was a bit reticent to tackle better players, but now he pretty much tackles anyone and everyone, and it is nice that he just gets treated like all the other team players.”
Mattie attends our Monday Night and Tuesday night Terriers Ability sessions, as well as our Inclusive Holiday Camps and embodies what it means to play with Terriers spirit.
