It was all smiles at the Training Ground on Wednesday evening when Manager Karl Robinson and Women’s Captain Lauren Haynes were the special guest coaches for our new Down’s Syndrome football team.
The pair took time out of their busy schedules to help the coaches who have been doing such an amazing job with the players since the training sessions were set up at the start of the summer.
The team, who usually train at the Oxford Academy, were invited to the Training Ground and had a great time with warm ups, shooting practice and a game to end the session, with Karl telling us
“At the end they thanked us for coming but actually we are the ones who should be thanking them because the coaches, the parents and the players are an absolute inspiration to us.
"The sheer love of the game and the way everyone got involved and had such fun with their friends just playing football was wonderful to see and it was a pleasure to meet them all.
“It’s a new team and we hope we can work with them more and more and grow the team and involve even more people; it’s not a specific age group and the welcome they gave us was incredible. It was very humbling and we loved working with an amazing group of people.”