The full New Zealand Special Olympics Summer Games football team. Hamilton local Finn is bottom row, second from the right, and Hamiltonian Kyle is third from the left at the top. Photo / Supplied
The full New Zealand Special Olympics Summer Games football team. Hamilton local Finn is bottom row, second from the right, and Hamiltonian Kyle is third from the left at the top. Photo / Supplied
Hamiltonians Finn McNally and Kyle Scandlyn will shoot off to Germany to represent New Zealand at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin in June.
The two have been selected as part of the New Zealand football team, alongside Conor McCarthy, Todd Neal (Hutt Valley), Louis Edwards, Cole Bailey (Kapiti), JP Roux (Auckland), Ash Coley, Connor Spinks (Mana), and Shane Hewitt and Sheamus Neilson (Otago).
The squad is making New Zealand history as the first football team that consists of only Special Olympics footballers — in previous World Games, New Zealand competed in the Unified Football competition, which included players without an intellectual disability.
Head coach Matt Woodason, of Otago, says the New Zealand footballers are a bit nervous about playing against global powerhouses like Germany and Brazil, but he has been impressed with the quality of his players.
“Looking at our squad, it looks like Todd will be in goal and the rest all want to be strikers, so we may need to have a chat with the boys that we need to do a bit of defending against some of those big teams,” Woodason says.
The New Zealand team doesn’t know yet who their opponents will be and what days they are playing because the first four days of competition will be used for grading to determine the divisions each country will end up competing in for the medals.
Woodason says his team is eager to win, “but I have told the boys that our first aim is to score a goal”.
“As we only have a couple of training camps, it will be hard to work on their skills, so we have been focusing on moulding a team and talk about not having any regrets. As long as our guys give it 100 per cent, it doesn’t really matter where we finish,” says Woodason.
Hamilton local Finn McNally is participating in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin, Germany. Photo / Supplied
Special Olympics New Zealand does not receive any government funding like other sports organisations, so each athlete has to pay the $18,000 out of their own pockets to contribute towards travel, accommodation, training camps and support staff.
Many of the New Zealand team have paid employment and have been busy saving and fundraising.
The Special Olympics World Summer Games is taking place from June 17 to 25. It is the pinnacle competition for athletes with an intellectual disability.
The New Zealand football team of 11 is making up nearly a third of the country’s total squad of 39 athletes. They are supported by 22 coaches and volunteers, who will leave for Germany on June 7 for a pre-tournament training camp near Munich.
The opening ceremony at the famous Olympiastadion in Berlin, constructed for the 1936 Olympic Games, has already sold out — 80,000 fans will be welcoming the 7000-plus athletes from more than 190 countries competing in 26 sports.
