Walsall College’s SLDD Sport Academy football team are celebrating after receiving silver medals in the first round of FA People’s Disability Cup Competition and qualifying for the regional semi-finals.

The FA People’s Cup is a 5-a-side competition run in partnership with BBC Get Inspired. There are 16 competition categories and first round tournaments take place in over 150 different venues across the country with more than 6,000 teams registered.

The SLDD team reached the semi-finals of the Premiership disability competition at Portway Leisure Centre in Oldbury last weekend without losing a game, but narrowly missing out on a place in the final.

10 teams from across the Black Country took part in the first round.

Their hard work has also been rewarded with a place in the next round, the regional semi-finals, which will take place on Sunday 26th March.

The students are part of the college’s SLDD Sport Academy, which launched in September to provide supported learning students with opportunities to gain accredited qualifications and progression routes to the higher level sport courses at college or employment.

SLDD Sports Co-ordinator and Lecturer at Walsall College, Andy Higgins, said: “The students gave a magnificent performance and have done incredibly well considering they have only been playing together since September.”

One member of the team, Samuel Kayode, has also been scouted by the college’s mainstream football academy to play competitive games for the 1st team.

The SLDD academy is helping him to improve his functional skills and work towards progressing on to a mainstream sports qualification.

Andy added: “This is fantastic news for Samuel and shows how much progress he has made with the Academy.”

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