ABOUT ME

I've been working with disabled footballers for quite a few years now, running my own club and working with Mencap & special Olympics at both regional and national level.

It all started as I was volunteering at my local Gateway (Mencap) leisure club and some of our members wanted to start playing football. We bought a ball, entered a couple of tournaments... and Harrogate Gateway Disability Football Club was suddenly born.

That was in 1985, and now i'm a little older, a little bit greyer and certainly a lot busier.

By day i'm a Civil Servant which gives me the flexibility to get involved in some of the things that I now do. Unfortunately I no longer get time to watch my beloved Huddersfield Town!

There are some fantastic people out there who are doing some great things for disabled footballers. I just happen to have had the privilege of working with some of them.

This site is a testament to all their commitment and hard work.

Harrogate Gateway FC
General Dogs Body
Mencap
National Team Manager
Tockwith Juniors FC
Coach Registration Secretary
Yorkshire & Humberside
S.Olympics
Head Coach
Special Olympics GB
Head Coach

 

WHY THIS WEBSITE?

I'm certainly no "techie" with computers and this web design malarkey was nothing more than an experiment to, well, see if I could.

So, after many misappropriated hours, with my head stuck in Elizabeth castro's "HTML For The World Wide web", my own football club found they'd got their own web site, whether they wanted it or not! The site may have been a little crude and very basic, but boy did it generate some e-mail.

Mark Summers

At the time there only appeared to be a couple of disability football sites on the net, and I found that I was getting enquiries from across the country, from players and coaches wanting to find out if there were any disability football clubs in their area.

The proverbial "straw that broke the camels back" came in Switzerland when I was over there with the National Mencap squad one year. I was chatting to a coach from another team, who told me that his players didn't get to play many games. This was apparently because they didn't know of any teams in their area.

I was utterly gobsmacked... but suddenly, the idea of the directory was born.

My other Web Sites:

www.hgfc.btinternet.com
Harrogate Gateway Disability FC (my club)
www.tockwithjuniorsfc.co.uk
Tockwith Juniors FC
www.benscottage.co.uk
Holiday Cottage near Tockwith
www.tockwithtennisclub.co.uk
Tockwith Tennis Club
www.helenstaples.co.uk
Antiques restorer & cabinet maker
www.sandra-entertainment.co.uk
Children's Party Entertainer