Walking football at Lawn Court sports club

Lawn Court Accommodation Service is a registered care-home providing mental health support for up to 18 people in Bexhill-on-Sea. As well as being an accommodation service supporting people who experience mental distress towards the goal of independent living, Lawn Court is also a very active and inspirational sports club. As a sports club the staff at Lawn Court work towards improving the mental wellbeing of residents and members through physical activity and social inclusion.

In taking part in sporting events the residents and staff at Lawn Court fight to reduce stigma around mental health whenever they participate in events and work in conjunction with community football teams from around the country to achieve that goal.

The service users we work with at Lawn Court attend sports club training sessions and football matches regularly. The sports club has evolved over the years and staff feel it has really boosted the all-round morale of residents, service users and staff alike as well as creating numerous memorable bonding experiences.

As well as general football teams Lawn Court also organises walking football and members of the sports club recently took part in a competition which Senior Social Care Worker, and very proud manager, Matthew Salt (shown below in classic manager pose) picks up the match report for:

A massive well done to our Walking Football Team on impressive debuts today. Scott Greenway Shannon Knell Luke Priestley Megan Welsh and Lucy Davies all made their 1st outings in a Lawn Court shirt and their 1st ever Walking Football experience. Our seasoned campaigner Troy Parsons made the team of 6 wearing the goalkeepers shirt.

With four 15 minute matches played our record was:

Won 1 drew 1 and lost 2

6 goals for and 8 goals against.

Scott netted 5 times with some clinical and accurate shooting and Lucy completing our goals with a powerful shot that the keeper could only parry into the net.

These 6 players did our club proud and were a pleasure to not just watch them play football that gradually became better with each match but to respect what our Sports Club is about and to uphold our ethos on and off the pitch. I really hope that all of you feel good about yourselves from participating today and hopefully you will all want to do it again very soon.

More information on Lawn Court Sports Club and their activities can be found in their Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lawncourtsc.