Kick a ball. 11-year-old Norah from Giessen is crazy about it. But the girl with Down’s syndrome could not go to any football club in the municipality of Altena. Her uncle, Ralph de Ruiter, therefore threw a ball for a G-team, for children with intellectual and physical disabilities. There are now enough registrations for that. “The goal is to let Norah play football in an accessible way.”
While her daughter scores a goal with Down’s syndrome, Mother Esther tells Omroep Brabant in July how much Norah wants to exercise the sport in a team context. “She also wants to play football for two years, so it is dire that she cannot go here,” she says on the sidelines of football club GRC 14 in Giessen. In the municipality of Altena there are no G-teams where children with a physical and intellectual disability, such as Norah, can play football.
Read also
NAC Breda saw the story about the girl with Down syndrome this summer with crazy eyes. The club recognizes the problem that children like Norah encounter. The football club therefore started in 2023 with a so-called G-team, where children from 10 to 18 years old can kick a ball with a physical and intellectual disability. Next season, this team will participate in the special Eredivisie for the second time. They play five tournaments in this, for which training is trained once a month.
“We would like to give Norah a place in the selection of season 2025-2026”, said project coordinator Nikki de Groot of NAC Social, following the article that Omroep Brabant wrote in July about the footballing girl with Down syndrome.
Mother Esther is honored with the range of NAC Breda and glad that children with a physical and intellectual disability get the chance to be able to play football in a team context. Yet next season Norah will not play in a yellow-black outfit for the pearl of the south. “We still choose to let her play a ball,” she says. “At a club where she can go by bike.”
The G-team that has been setting up her uncle Ralph de Ruiter since February at GRC 14 in Giessen has now received enough registrations to start next season. In July there was only one registration of a boy of 9 from Wijk and Aalburg, but now there are five. All of children from the municipality of Altena with a physical and intellectual disability. “After the summer vacation we can start anyway.”
The goalfetters, more than football
The oldest G-football team in Brabant is followed in the series ‘The GoalGetters, more than football’. Limitations that play a role in daily life fall away on the football field.
Only playing pleasure, sportiness and friendship counts there. View the episodes via Brabant+.