Julián Speroni was having a rare old time. There was the Crystal Palace goalkeeper in an electric wheelchair, spinning round a gym in Croydon as if auditioning for the part of Davros in the next series of Dr Who. Without much immediate sign of success, he was attempting to navigate a large ball into a goal by nudging it with a set of alarming looking bull bars attached to the front. Within a few moments of climbing aboard at the start of this game of Powerchair football, he had already collided heavily with another player, the metallic thwack echoing round the gym.
“Dirty challenge that,” said his Palace team-mate, Zecki Fryers, who was watching from the sidelines. “The ref needs to get out his cards.” Speroni and his colleague Joe Ledley had joined in one of the Powerball sessions run by the Palace Foundation every Wednesday evening. Here, each week, half a dozen severely disabled people – men and women, boys and girls – get to play football. For one of the regulars, Matt Sharp, having Speroni alongside him was a moment to remember, something he had been looking forward to for weeks.
“Matt comes from a family of high achievers,” said his mother, Christine, who, like her 27-year-old son, is a lifelong Palace supporter. “But none of them have ever played a game of football on the same team as Julián Speroni.” Matt, who has Tourette’s Syndrome, was a keen footballer in his youth. When he was 12, he had a nervous spasm so severe he suffered irreparable damage to his spine. Confined to a wheelchair since, he and his family thought his chances of playing the game were over. But a year ago, alerted by a note in the Palace matchday programme, he came to a Powerchair session. Now he represents Palace in competitive games across the south of England.
“It’s amazing what it’s done for his self-confidence,” said his mother. “All those lessons of teamwork, working together, not being alone – brilliant.” And his excitement at being in the same team as Speroni was not simply that he was star struck. The Speroni name has particular resonance in these parts; he is the very reason several of those participating are able to join in. The Argentine exile has just bought two of the chairs used in the sport from the money raised during his testimonial year. Given that they cost £6,000 each, this was no small investment.
“The testimonial year wasn’t about the money,” he said. “It was about trying to make a difference. That’s why at the beginning I decided to donate whatever we got, all of it.” A total of £200,000 was raised by events during his year, money now being used to underwrite several community programmes like this.
“The fact that they see us every week playing on TV, the fact they can do the same, they get the chance to play with us, it means a lot to them, you can see that,” he said of the Powerchair regulars, grinning in the group. “Sometimes you don’t realise how much you can help.” However, he was anxious to dispel any suggestion that he was a unique example of a footballer with a conscience. Contrary to the popular view of a solipsistic, venal profession, he insisted many of his contemporaries are equally engaged.
“There’s a lot of generous footballers,” he said. “It is possible to be competitive and focused on your job but also realise how lucky you are.”
And one thing he was not looking for was any personal attention from his support. “If you’re going to write about this, it’s not about me,” he said. “If we can encourage more people to do this, that’s really what we want to do..”
With that, he was heading back to a chair, for another attempt at trying to control the ball, a footballer who clearly enjoys the idea of philanthropy.
- Telegraph