Beth Redsull spent her school years being misread. She was the challenging child, the one who got pushed aside, even though on paper she was the A-star student. A diagnosis of ADHD last year finally gave that experience a name. "You almost grieve what you thought you knew about yourself," she says, "and then you've got to relearn."
That relearning now shapes everything she does on a football pitch. Beth has worked in childcare for close to six years. At her club in Olney she coaches her own youth team and leads its pan-disability Comets group, sessions she describes as typically for children aged 5 to 11. In July, Berks & Bucks FA named her Coach of the Year for the disability pathway. She had never heard of the awards before the nomination email arrived.
Children's disability football is a corner of the grassroots game most people never see, and Beth puts the problem plainly: it is a scary, unspoken subject, and coaches stay away because they don't feel they know enough. Families who want their child to play often can't find a session. Clubs want to start big when the honest starting point is small.
Her sessions are built on a different measure of success. "It's not about football at all," she says. "It's just about a safe place where they can exert that energy in a safe and controlled manner." A caught ball gets a team celebration. Progress is counted in steps most of the game never has to think about. "A high five is a milestone for some of those children."
None of it existed until somebody fought for it. The group began when Beth and a fellow volunteer at the club pushed a nervous committee to try something new and scary, then kept pushing. Today the sessions run with coaches devoted to adapting every drill, one-to-one attention for every child, and parents who talk to each other because someone finally built a place where their children feel safe, heard and valued.
Beth's ask of the wider game is simple: talk about it. Publicise disability sessions and events. Give coaches ways to learn, from newsletters to open evenings to visiting other clubs' sessions. "People feel more at ease if it's spoken about," she says, "because they know who they can reach to and where they can get that information."
Beth's full conversation is episode 21 of the Grassroots Hotline, out 20 August on YouTube, Spotify and in the Centre Circle app.
