Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Belfast Telegraph
The Ulster Deaf Sports Council celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and, at the annual meeting held last week in the Kinghan Church rooms on Belfast's Botanic Avenue, they were honoured by the presence of Craig Crowley, chair of UK Deaf Sport, who was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2006.
Craig told us that UKDS has now replaced the British Deaf Sports Council as the governing body for deaf sport in the UK.
He aims to increase awareness of deafness in mainstream sport along with possible involvement in the disability sports strategy and says the Government is gradually becoming more appreciative of our needs.
UKDS is building up branches in Scotland and Wales as well as England and Craig would like to see Northern Ireland more actively involved.
He is well aware of our long friendship and co-operation with deaf athletes from the Repblic of Ireland, but says this is no reason to hinder involvement with UK deaf sport as the outlook everywhere is becoming more international in tone.
Sport in the Republic is under the banner of the Irish Deaf Sports Association and we in the North have always enjoyed good relations with our friends in the South. I was one of the founder members of the Ulster set-up and often drove to Dublin for committee meetings and to help organise sports meetings both indoors and out. The sign language they use is very different from ours but made no difference to the warm regard we felt for one another.
In those days the majority of deaf pupils both here and in Dublin were educated in one large school and big crowds of both children and adults turned up for the annual sports days.
But gradually, as teaching practice changed and hearing-impaired units spread in ever-increasing numbers around the country, the numbers rapidly shrivelled and those memorable days of sporting rivalry and social get-togethers were abandoned.
Unable to make regular contact, the gradual assimilation of promising pupils into adult athletics faded away to almost nothing and new thinking is required to meet the demands of the new situation.
I chatted about this after the meeting in KC with Stuart Harrison, the full-time UK development manager and an old boy of Mary Hare. He remains upbeat about the situation and told me one way of overcoming the problem will be to make more use of organisations like the Northern Ireland Deaf Youth Association and the contacts made with them when pupils leave school and find their feet in the deaf world.
The NIDYA helps them adapt to the deaf community and along with the UDSC encourages any sporting aspirations they may have.
Stuart also said UKDS is using the label of disability sports to raise the profile and make the public more aware of deaf sport. For example, deaf athletes in swimming and table tennis are now taking part in disability competitions to provide more opportunities for reaching out to the wider hard of hearing and hearing communities.
Entrance to the old Deaf World Games required hearing loss of around 75 decibels, but this is now regarded as unrealistic and the lowering of the requirement to 35/40 opens the door to a new class of deaf athletes for the Deaflympics planned for Taipei, China, in September 2009.
Northern Ireland has a long way to go before we can even think of qualifying for the event. We have a very good football team and keen rivalry among our badminton and bowls players, but field events such as running, jumping and hurling have been neglected for years.
It'll be interesting to see if the new vision and organisation expounded by Craig can spark new life into our young athletes.
The Ulster Deaf Sports Council celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and, at the annual meeting held last week in the Kinghan Church rooms on Belfast's Botanic Avenue, they were honoured by the presence of Craig Crowley, chair of UK Deaf Sport, who was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2006.
Craig told us that UKDS has now replaced the British Deaf Sports Council as the governing body for deaf sport in the UK.
He aims to increase awareness of deafness in mainstream sport along with possible involvement in the disability sports strategy and says the Government is gradually becoming more appreciative of our needs.
UKDS is building up branches in Scotland and Wales as well as England and Craig would like to see Northern Ireland more actively involved.
He is well aware of our long friendship and co-operation with deaf athletes from the Repblic of Ireland, but says this is no reason to hinder involvement with UK deaf sport as the outlook everywhere is becoming more international in tone.
Sport in the Republic is under the banner of the Irish Deaf Sports Association and we in the North have always enjoyed good relations with our friends in the South. I was one of the founder members of the Ulster set-up and often drove to Dublin for committee meetings and to help organise sports meetings both indoors and out. The sign language they use is very different from ours but made no difference to the warm regard we felt for one another.
In those days the majority of deaf pupils both here and in Dublin were educated in one large school and big crowds of both children and adults turned up for the annual sports days.
But gradually, as teaching practice changed and hearing-impaired units spread in ever-increasing numbers around the country, the numbers rapidly shrivelled and those memorable days of sporting rivalry and social get-togethers were abandoned.
Unable to make regular contact, the gradual assimilation of promising pupils into adult athletics faded away to almost nothing and new thinking is required to meet the demands of the new situation.
I chatted about this after the meeting in KC with Stuart Harrison, the full-time UK development manager and an old boy of Mary Hare. He remains upbeat about the situation and told me one way of overcoming the problem will be to make more use of organisations like the Northern Ireland Deaf Youth Association and the contacts made with them when pupils leave school and find their feet in the deaf world.
The NIDYA helps them adapt to the deaf community and along with the UDSC encourages any sporting aspirations they may have.
Stuart also said UKDS is using the label of disability sports to raise the profile and make the public more aware of deaf sport. For example, deaf athletes in swimming and table tennis are now taking part in disability competitions to provide more opportunities for reaching out to the wider hard of hearing and hearing communities.
Entrance to the old Deaf World Games required hearing loss of around 75 decibels, but this is now regarded as unrealistic and the lowering of the requirement to 35/40 opens the door to a new class of deaf athletes for the Deaflympics planned for Taipei, China, in September 2009.
Northern Ireland has a long way to go before we can even think of qualifying for the event. We have a very good football team and keen rivalry among our badminton and bowls players, but field events such as running, jumping and hurling have been neglected for years.
It'll be interesting to see if the new vision and organisation expounded by Craig can spark new life into our young athletes.