Capital Football is focused on building a powerchair team capable of competing on the national stage after a $120,000 donation delivered nine new mobility chairs.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The new chairs come fit with safety barriers, harnesses, headrests and a new top speed with charity Rotary's donation allowing Capital Football to form a two-team competition in Canberra.
Players with quadriplegia, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, hand trauma, stroke, and other spinal cord injuries feature in powerchair soccer.
Weston Valley and Gungahlin United will launch the new season on Saturday with the two teams to face off in a four-a-side league battling for the Capital Football Powerchair Cup. Three matches are scheduled over the next two months.
Reigning federation female coach of the year winner Kelly Stirton will coach both teams, after being the first-ever female to coach the cerebral palsy national championships in Sydney last year.
MORE SPORT
Now Stirton and Capital Football will kickoff conversations about launching a Canberra United powerchair team to compete against five other Australian teams and two New Zealand teams, in a move that would help to "create more opportunities for people who haven't had the opportunity before".
"At the moment we've got nine [players] so we are looking for more players to get on board so our aim is to have our own competition like NSW having a first grade and reserve grade team," Stirton said.
"Because eventually we'll compete at national level as well so, to be able to select a Canberra United team to go at that level, this is a starting base for us and hopefully we can expand on that and have some more juniors coming through.
"Having faster and more agile chairs and be able to compete at that level because we hadn't been able to compete at competition level before due to the quality of chairs.
"Having Rotary bring that money in and buying new chairs for us opened us up to be able to run this competition and without those chairs we wouldn't be able to do this so it's a massive stepping stone in the right direction for us."
Weston Valley captain Brandon Stroud says the inaugural powerchair season will bring momentum towards forming a Canberra United side able to play against interstate rivals.
"It's made a big difference especially now, the old chairs we couldn't really train properly but now that we got the correct chairs we can train properly and hopefully compete in nationals," Stroud said.
"They are a bit faster and you've got be careful with controlling them."