James Murphy
INCLUSIVITY will be the focus when the 2023 Limestone All Abilities Corporate Games take place at Malseed Park this Saturday.
The annual event, which was started in 2021, has members of the Limestone All Abilities soccer program compete in friendly matches and novelty games against members of the local community.
Founder of Limestone All Abilities Keith Seiler spoke to The Border Watch this week and said all was in place for another successful carnival.
“It is coming along just nicely,” he said.
“We endeavour to contact as many people from the community and local businesses as possible.
“Some just keep coming up because they enjoy it so much and some are new ones coming in.
“It is a really good community effort to be out there and be inclusive within our community.”
Currently Seiler expected to cater for around 30 people, including nine of his All Abilities athletes.
However, with an open door atmosphere, there could be more community members turn up on the day.
“I don’t have a format per say,” Seiler said.
“Whoever shows up I work out some team games to play and create fun activities as well to keep everyone engaged.
“We will have some Police members there, some fireys perhaps, Bendigo Bank have been very supportive over the years and the District and City Councils have been too.”
Seiler started the All Abilities program in a bid to give opportunities to people with intellectual disabilities to play the sport they love.
“I created (Limestone All Abilities) about 6 or 7 years ago to allow our athletes to participate in soccer,” he said.
“From four athletes we have grown up to 10-11.
“We support them in as many ways as we can, with fundraising to attend events, sometimes locally and sometimes interstate.”
The Corporate Games is currently the only local event for the All Abilities athletes and is well received by all involved.
“We train most weeks and without creating events like these we don’t get opportunities to play games,” Seiler said.
“Recently we have had to travel to Melbourne to get a game and we have travelled to Adelaide many times just to get games.
“To have it locally is a big bonus to our guys.”
In light of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Seiler pointed out that seven of the 10 players in his current squad are girls.
“The more we promote this for the girls, the better,” he said.
Games kick off on Saturday from 10am, with a free barbecue lunch from 12pm followed by more soccer action until around 2pm.
