As some of you may know, I have been in the process of creating an organisation, which I have named the Paine Foundation (pun intended) since the latter end of 2024. It is a football team run for Women and Girls with Disabilities (aged 16+) who don’t fit into the categories given to sports: mainstream or disability.

This is where I see myself, in the grey area between the two, and in the last year, I have become increasing more aware of that fact. The 2023-2024 season went really well for me in mainstream (despite the few injuries), having won the SCWGFL U18 Premier Division with Worthing Town, coming 2nd in the Sussex County Cup, playing a couple games in the JPL, playing netball at a high level at college and “going international” when I joined the football girls (now my teammates) on their trip to Salou in February!

September 2024

I told myself “This is going to be my year!”. I felt great, ready to earn my place as a starter for the College Netball team and the newly formed Worthing Town Development Squad (as we had all started turning 18 so moved into the Women’s Pyramid). The first few football friendlies went incredibly:

• The View -> 4-2 Win | 2 assists
• Pevensey U18 -> 2-2 Draw
• Bognor Regis Town -> 0-3 Loss | Played for the new U18s and made my best performance since starting playing football
• Seaford -> 9-1 Win | 1 Goal & 1 assist

Off the back of the 9-1 win and my first goal of the season, my confidence was through the roof. I took this confidence to preseason at college, where I met the 1st years for the first time since re-trialling! Not only did I feel incredible at netball again, but I had the form from football keeping me going and the knowledge from the year before of how to behave and act to earn my place on the squad.

I was NOT going to let Spinabifida stop me from attempting anything, but if I had to sit out, I had to sit out. In my head, I had proved myself to my coaches and the team. I had proved myself that I was good and that the 2023-2024 season was just one of those years riddled with injuries and low self-confidence.

The New Season

The opening weekend of the new season, we were playing Woodingdean Wanderers away. My back had already been playing up but no more than normal. I took my painkillers like I do before every match and warmed up myself and the goalkeeper as I was starting on the bench. Turns out we only had 11 players… ok Abi, you’re going to be playing a full 90… that’s not that bad… you did at the end of last season in your first game back from injury… you scored in that match…

I don’t remember much from that match, apart from we didn’t have our usual coach, we played with 11, and I couldn’t even make it to half time before I had to come off because of the most excruciating pain coming from the base of my spine. We were already getting my back checked because it had been feeling quite unstable, I thought my balance was off and my back would give out when I did certain movements, but it had never done it at football before.

The only way I can describe it is that it hurt so much to the point I couldn’t concentrate, every time the ball would go to the other end of the pitch I would squat to the ground as that was the only thing that alleviated the pain, and when I tried to run, my legs would feel like they weren’t moving as quick as I wanted them to.

It sent me into a panic attack, not only because I thought my Spinal Cord had retethered, but also because I felt like I had let my team down. It was our first league match in Women’s Football and I forced the team to compensate for 1 less player. And then, to make it even worse, one of my other players had to come off for a head injury in the second half, so I forced myself to go back on when it was feeling better. Despite playing with 9, we only lost 2-1, but it was a game we definitely should have won.

The pain didn’t get much better, so after I assessed it in the next match, I made the decision to not play at a high intensity until I had the MRI and got the results back, just in case my Spinal Cord had in fact retethered. I didn’t play at netball for a month, and only trained for Town once, where normally I’d be training 4 times a week (3 times netball, 1 time football). It was during that time when I realised netball was making the pain much worse, and football made me happier, so after some long decisions with my coaches and the Head of Sport, I transferred to the football academy on a “training only” basis.

The Role College Played

Also during this time, my perspective changed. It was when I started thinking about what would eventually become the idea for the Paine Foundation. We had gotten our predicted grades back at college, and my Physical Education grade was lower than all of the grades I’d gotten previously in our Formal Progress Points (exams in easy terms). I was told it was because of the level of sport I play, and how the exam board award more marks to the elite than the amateur so to speak. At that point, netball wasn’t going to do it for me (which is what I did my coursework on) or mainstream football, but disability football however…

I researched national level disability opportunities in both Women’s and Mixed teams but I hit a dead end, emailed my old coach from BHAFC to see if there were any national opportunities he could offer me with the Women’s Cerebral Palsey Team like they had previously offered, but that was a dead end because I would only be able to train and play internal friendlies because I don’t have Cerebral Palsey; the FA and the England Talent Pathway had the same luck. I am simply not disabled enough, and I know it sounds horrible, but it’s true.

The Beginning of the Foundation

The catalyst for it all was when I represented hidden disabilities in the Worthing Football Club x wecanfly Kit Promo, invited by George Dowell MBE himself, getting a clip with star player Danny Cashman (left) and spending the day filming with U18s Captain and 1st Team Prospect Danny Jordan (right)! After that my brain would not stop running with ideas.

Photo Credits

Creative Direction @wecanfly____ @jakeybc
Design / Co-Director @wecanfly____ @jakeybc
Co-Direction / Film Production – @itsalexmcampbell @liam_weir
Edit / Grade / Sound – @itsalexmcampbell
Stylist @jakeybc
Collaboration @worthingfc @macron @macronfootball
Sponsors @thisisfocusgroup @mullitoverdrinks @jasonmarkk
With @worthingfcwomen @macronsportshubhastings @jasonmarkk.eu

I couldn’t sleep until I wrote the ideas down, and even then I would dream about it. There was no national set up for me? Well then, I’m going to put in the work and fight for one. So I came up with a name and created a logo: The Paine Foundation – a play on my own surname! I set up a website, made an email address, set up the social medias, created a “business plan/story” and sent it to absolutely everyone I could think of. Straight away, I had interest from the Sussex and London FA Disability and Inclusion Leads! That was a huge milestone and I hadn’t even done anything yet.

Then I met with Pinnacle UK, who offered to help me with my kit, donated me a tracksuit so I could network and look professional and also set me up my online store where we sell kit and merchandise like scarves, sliders, water bottles etc. I have also set up a GoFundMe to help with setup costs so I am not paying out of pocket for absolutely everything, if you are in a position to donate, every penny counts and is greatly appreciated 🙂

And that is where we are at as of 8th February 2025, exactly a year since I left for the Spain Trip at college, where my love for football grew so much. I am also in the process of securing a venue to train while we grow, and my goal by the end of 2025 is to have 3 Sussex based squads of 9 players, all with disabilities so we can run competitive “tournaments”.

I absolutely cannot wait until I can get a community of people who love the sport just as much as I do, seeing them all in the kit that I love, with their names and numbers on the back of their shirts, playing for my team and championing disability inclusion in Women’s Football!

Thank you so much for reading! See you in the next one 🙂

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