What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers! May the deaf lionesses roar too!! 

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers.  Such a shame to ultimately have lost to Spain but what wonderful achievement to have made it to the final!

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers!! An amazing 23 Strong Squad, plus Manager Sarina Weigman – took us all the way to the final!

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers!! Here’s the whole squad!!

GOALKEEPERS:

Mary Earps

Hannah Hampton

Elli Roebuck

DEFENDERS:

Millie Bright

Lucy Bronze

Jess Carter

Niamh Charles

Alex Greenwood

Esme Morgan

Lotte Wubben-Moy

MIDFIELDERS:

Laura Coombs

Jordan Nobbs

Georgia Stanway

Ella Toone

Keira Walsh

Katie Zelem

FORWARDS:

Rachel Daly

Bethany England

Lauren Hemp

Chloe Kelly

Katie Robinson

Alessia Russo

MANAGER:

Sarina Weigman

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers!!

THE GOLDEN GLOVE AWARD:

The Golden Glove Award for the whole tournament went to England’s Mary Earps.  Who with 42 Senior Caps and 24 Clean Sheets proved herself to be the ultimate goalkeeper across all the international squads.

LUCY BRONZE:

All of the women were amazing and played brilliantly.  The tournament brought Lucy Bronze’s tally of England caps to 112.  Quite extraordinary.

Long road to the final!

World Cup ’23 glory started nearly two years ago in September 2021 with the qualifiers.  Too many (8) matches to list individually but we thought it was worth shouting from the rooftops that across these matches England managed to get the ball in the back of their opponents nets’ 68 times (on average 8.5 times a match!).  All this whilst not allowing a single opposition goal into theirs – WOW!  The group stages told a similar story.  The Lionesses scored 20 goals and only conceded one across the 5 matches and then….. victories in the Round of 16, ¼ Finals and Semi’s to the eventual showdown with Spain, in the final, on 20/08/23.  A fantastic match and only losing out by a single goal. 

Thank you for our exciting Summer of Women’s Football with more to come!

Well done all of you, you did us proud and gave us such an exciting Summer of Women’s Football.  If you want more detail, you can find all the match results here!. However…..

Here comes the Women’s Deaf Football team!

Self-Funded Team:

Unlike the England Women’s Team the England Deaf Women’s Team isn’t funded by the Football Association (FA) this means that all of the England Deaf Women’s Football team all have to quadruple up as fundraisers, organisers and advocates as well as playing the matches.  The team’s self-funded status makes it a battle to get to any major tournaments before they even think about having to kick a ball!

Gary Neville and Steven Gerrard show their support for the Women’s Deaf Football Team.

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers. Even though the FA are not supporting the team’s efforts, the wider footballing community is doing its best.  The squad needed to raise £50,000.00 before the end of June to stand a chance of getting to the finals.  With an overall target of £100,000.00 before late Autumn 2023.  England legends Gary Neville and Steven Gerrard have both donated £5000.00.  Meaning that the team hit their halfway target on time to be in with a chance of getting to Kuala Lumpur.  If you’d like to help get them there please visit their Fundraising page.

It’s not Gary’s first donating rodeo!

Former Manchester United right-back Gary Neville previously donated £20,000.00 in 2017 to pay for the squads’ flight deposits to secure their place at the Deaflympics in Turkey.  Seeing them not only get there but go onto to reach Bronze medal position, eventually losing out to Brazil.

England Player Claire Stancliffe.  A veteran of Women’s Deaf Football.

Claire has won 4 bronze medals as part of the Deaf Women’s Football Team.

‘Hero’ Steven Gerrard!

Team Captain Claire Stancliffe of the team made a statement of thanks to Gary Neville during Deaf Awareness Week. “It’s fantastic as it’s given us a really good start to the campaign and I can’t thank him (Neville) enough for the support he shows us.”  However, as she says “Steven Gerrard is my hero”, Stancliffe goes on to say “I am a massive Liverpool fan so as you can imagine I am on top of the world.  I have his signed shirt hanging in my room.  It’s so overwhelming to know the player you watched growing up is showing his support for the team!”.

Other faces, famous and otherwise have all helped the Women’s Deaf Football Team.

The Women’s Deaf Football Team have had further support from other faces some more and some less famous.  Each and every donation is so gratefully appreciated and really will make a HUGE difference. 

Frank Hester OBE – (founder of Healthcare Technology Provider TPP) contributed £15,000.00 along with £1,000.00 from Gary Lineker, all helping to get the Women to Kuala Lumpur. 

Ex-Love Islander, Tasha Ghouri , who is also deaf, donated too.

Tasha was born deaf and wore hearing aids until she was 5 years old when she had a cochlear implant.

All of us at Hearing Aid Recycling have been completely gripped by the England Ladies’ progress this Summer.  We’re absolutely thrilled that the Deaf Women’s Squad have managed to raise enough to get to Kuala Lumpur and can’t wait to follow their progress.  We’re hoping you’ll be cheering them (hopefully) all the way to the final too.  However, as we’ve already talked about, just the positivity and determination they have shown to become international sportswomen despite their deafness, coupled with their extraordinary efforts to raise the funds in the first place is humbling enough.  Well done all of you, you are all truly an amazing inspiration.

Why donate hearing aids?

Like founder Zoe, all of the team will have been looked after through their lives by our amazing NHS.  Being dispensed life-enhancing hearing aids, where needed.  Please help us to help others less fortunate than us in the UK.  There are hundreds of millions of deaf people tens and tens of millions of them children who don’t currently have access to hearing aids.  We throw away many, many hearing aids each year.  In a world of scarce resources and much need, please help us to change this.  Working together we can make a MASSIVE difference with these tiny devices.

Every donated Hearing Aid can make a difference.

If you or a loved one, or even, just someone you have met once(!) has any no longer needed hearing aids, PLEASE tell them all about us.  Encourage them to donate them, please.  It is so simple, either by posting them directly to us, or dropping them to one of our many Collection Centres.  We feel so passionately about transforming lives through access to better hearing that we are adding Collection Centres all the time.  You can find you nearest one with our interactive map, or by looking them up on the A-Z List.  We also add our newest collection centres to our blog here. 

Would your business like to help us help people donate their hearing aids?

Do you have a publicly facing business, possibly a shop or centre with high footfall?  Do you have links to GP’s, Pharmacies, audiology clinics or Care Homes. We already have some GP’s collecting for us, some audiology practices, pharmacies and some Care Homes (Colten Care and Bupa).  We’d love to ‘hear’ from you if you do and would be happy to help.  Here’s a link to how! 

What a Summer for England’s Women Footballers!! Would you like to help us?

Do you have a public profile?  Would you be happy to help us spread the word?  Every little helps?  A tweet?  An insta post?  Tiktok?  Facebook?  Helping us front a national awareness campaign?   

We’re so proud to have the incredible Evelyn Glennie Foundation as one of our ambassadors, you can read about her here!  Would you like to make it ‘onto the page’, our hopefully soon to be famous “Supporting Partners” page?  Hope so!!  Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here.  Again, we’d LOVE to ‘HEAR’ from you.

If you’d like to read more about the Women’s Deaf Football Team and their journey to Kuala Lumpur please check out these articles and articles:

https://www.facebook.com/4wdfcmalaysia2023/

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023-05-24/world-cup-fundraiser-hits-goal-for-englands-deaf-womens-football-team

For more on the Lionesses success (and avoiding Spanish kissgate):