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Skateboarding

When Skateboarding Meets Football

Woah, talk about battling adversity...

Unless you’re blind, deaf and dumb (or just American… I hear they don’t like it over there) then you’ll have noticed there’s a World Cup on.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to start covering football any time soon, but we thought it would give us a perfect excuse to share one of our favourite football-themed skate videos ever. Introducing… skate soccer.

This is what happened when a group of disabled dudes in Ghana decided that just because they couldn’t use their legs, it wasn’t going to stop them playing football.

“They customised some skateboards and invented a brand new sport.”

They customised some “skateboards” (in reality they look more like carts customised with rollerskate wheels) and invented a brand new sport.

This video (which is about two years old) was produced as a Kickstarter pitch for a video about the team, called Rollaball, which looks rad eh?

Here’s their full skinny. And yes, they did get the funding.

“The documentary will tell the story of Ghana’s skate soccer team, a group of polio survivors who have created a skateboard-inspired version of soccer adapted to suit their disability.

Begging and sleeping on the streets, without the use of their legs, these men find purpose and joy in playing ball on Sundays at a deserted taxi-rank, where for a few hours, they can be heroes.

Our film focuses on people with disabilities who live on the streets of Accra, Ghana. While they appear to be victims of poverty, they are taking control of their lives through sport.

Films about Africa tend to focus on stories that deal with victims of war, poverty, sexual violence and AIDS. These stories reinforce the one-dimensional stereotypes of Africa as a helpless victim.

We intend for Rollaball to help break these misunderstandings and contribute to changing these stereotypes.”

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