How it All Started in the UK

Powerchair Football was first introduced to the UK when Hiroshi Takahashi from Japan introduced the game at Aspire in Stanmore in 2001. The Japanese had been playing many years and had many teams and leagues. At that time the bumper was a tyre cut in half and tied over the players’ footplates to the chair, and the ball was gigantic! If you had a faster wheelchair than other players, you needed to identify yourself with a special armband or scarf and only 2 for each team were allowed on pitch at the same time.

Aspire demonstrated the game at various cities around the UK and held the first ever Powerchair Football Tournament. In 2002 Japan invited England to come and play, and so the first ever team of powerchair football players from England flew to Tokyo and played different Japanese teams, both in Tokyo and in Nagano.

The game slowly gained popularity as powerchair users started to find out about it and our Aspire club was officially formed in 2003, the first powerchair football club in the UK. Representatives went to summit meetings in countries such as France and Portugal. France, like Japan, had been playing for over 20 years! The governing body - WFA (Wheelchair Football Association) was set up as well as an international powerchair football body – FIPFA. In the summer of 2005 various countries went to Atlanta to thrash out a set of rules to govern powerchair football in all countries, as each country was playing differently. The English game was chosen as the protocol, but without the flying tackles! Agreement had been reached on standard bumpers for all chairs. Aspire were fortunate to have four of our players go to Atlanta to help formulate the rules.

The first ever National League was set up by The WFA for the 2006/07 Season, commencing in November 2006 and finishing in March 2007. Aspire Hotspur, as we were then named, won the League and are the current Title Holders. We still have close links with Tottenham Hotspur, but it was felt as a Club we should move away from affiliation with one Premiership club in order that we could get other clubs involved in our sport, which we are currently doing. We are now Aspire Powerchair Sports Club – within this Hub is the Aspire Powerchair Football Club.

FIPFA meanwhile had been working hard, together with Japanese promoters, and the inaugural Invacare Powerchair Football World Cup was held in Tokyo in October 2007. Once again, proving the quality of the Aspire Club, three of our members were selected for England.

FIPFA World Cup Highlights Film

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