Today marks World Cerebral Palsy Day and Cambridge United are delighted to announce that Irwin Mitchell have reaffirmed their commitment to Cambridge United Community Trust’s Ambulant Cerebral Palsy programme as well as the Amputee Football Sessions.
The Cambridge office of national law firm Irwin Mitchell has once again demonstrated its commitment to supporting disability sport in the local community by sponsoring the Trust for the third year running. The sponsorship last year meant 38 Amputee Sessions & 43 Ambulant Cerebral Palsy sessions could take place and all in all, Irwin Mitchell helped provide over 550 total participant hours of sport!
The two sessions are part of the Community Trust’s disability sport programme whose 17 weekly sessions engaged with 230 individuals last year. As lockdown hit, the sessions continued in a virtual format. Indeed, the Community Trust’s disability sport officer, Phil, clocked up over 10,000 minutes of Zoom sessions keeping the groups engaged in challenging times.
Irwin Mitchell, through this partnership, is also supporting Cambridge United Community Trust to take part in the national Cerebral Palsy Sport League for the second year. Last year Cambridge United led well by captain Alessio Verrecchia who said “I’ve really enjoyed playing at the Trust’s sessions for the last four years, gradually gaining more and more responsibility. It was a real honour playing and managing the team last year: we had a great debut season and now looking forward to a fantastic next season.”
The Trust’s Amputee Football programme, which launched in February 2018 and has given amputees the opportunity to train weekly in an inclusive environment. One of the attendees, Nathan, who has gone on to play for England under-23’s amputee team said of the sessions: “The sessions have helped me to build my confidence, make new friends, learn and develop skills (mentally and physically) and most importantly have fun in the process."
Neil Whiteley, Regional Managing Partner of Irwin Mitchell’s Cambridge office, said: “Over the past few months, the pandemic has hit community sports and voluntary groups hard, and it has been incredibly impressive just how the team at the Community Trust have been able to keep up some of the momentum with their programmes by finding new ways to reaching out to their networks.”
“We are delighted to be entering into a third year supporting and sponsoring the programme to help ensure that people in the community who have experienced life changing disabilities can continue to benefit from the excellent work of the Trust.”
“Access to sport and, in these challenging times, even just keeping in touch with team-mates is so important to quality of life. Hopefully with time everyone will begin to have the full opportunities that they enjoyed before to participate in team sport and develop their confidence and as well as having a great time.”
Phil Mullen, Disability Sport Officer at Cambridge United Community Trust said: “We are immensely grateful to Irwin Mitchell for their ongoing support. Every day I see the impact that our disability sport sessions have on people’s confidence and wellbeing. We exist to reduce the inequalities between mainstream and disability sport and couldn’t do it without companies such as Irwin Mitchell backing us in this way.”