Come on, help the Comets soar!

If I said to you that my little girl is part of a pan-disability football team, would you know what I was talking about?

- Carrie Carlisle

It’s a term that I was unfamiliar with. Until a fellow SEN mam put a poster up in a WhatsApp group that I'm in.

It was for something called The Comets. A pan-disability football programme the Football Association had started running.

And Whitley Bay Sporting Club were starting a team.

We live nowhere near Whitley Bay, so I was concerned my daughter wouldn't be allowed to to join.

Because, if there’s one rule the parents of a disabled child know how to take seriously? It's asking a lot of permission before crossing county lines for any official reason.

Luckily we were told it wouldn't be an issue. And the very next week, our little one had her first football session.

When one parent is a professional athlete, there’s a hierarchy of small talk enquiries regarding their offspring’s sporting prowess.

First: they enquire about the boys.

Next: if they do not receive a satisfactory response, they enquire about the able-bodied girls. Usually in order of age.