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League Levels the Playing Field

  • 02/11/12
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2 new divisions will be introduced to the Devon Ability Counts League this season in a re-structure.

The Devon Ability Counts Football league is making big steps this season to ensure that players of all abilities can enjoy football matches at a level to suit them. Founded in 2009 the league has grown quickly, and there are now 12 clubs across Devon fielding more than 30 teams, giving hundreds of disabled players a chance to play regular competitive football, with opportunities for both men, women and children. However this rapid growth has also provided challenges, with clubs each catering for differing ranges of ability of players previously meaning some less mobile or skilled players could not compete in games.

This season the league is expanding from 3 up to 5 men’s divisions, each catering for a different overall ability level of player and teams. The extra divisions enable teams to be grouped more evenly than ever before, meaning that all players will hopefully be able to compete.

The new Premiership division will enable the strongest players with a disability to test themselves against each other, whilst the new League divisions will enable weaker teams and players with more severe disabilities to have fun games against each other and hopefully score lots of goals! The Championship and new Intermediate divisions will cater for everybody in-between!

It isn’t just men’s football that is changing; the Women’s Ability Counts League is also making some changes for this season. In addition to playing in a league as clubs, all the women’s disability football teams also voted to mix and match teams at each fixture too to give all players a mixture of playing with friends and as teams.