Anthony Brooke

Mixed ability sport might not exist but for this multiple award-winner

- Alan Pearey

VICTORIA HALL in Saltire was the setting for a recent celebration: the tenth anniversary of International Mixed Ability Sports. Amid the assembled cluster of energisers and high achievers was Anthony Brooke. But for him, all the goodness sprinkled on the world by IMAS, the work done in uniting people of all abilities in sport, even the mixed ability rap by local artist Wilko Wilkes that we were treated to, might not exist.

It all started 16 years ago. Brooke wanted to play contact rugby but his local rugby league club said no because he had cerebral palsy. So he wrote to the area’s disability development officer and next thing, a group of RFU coaches gathered at Bradford & Bingley RFC to chuck a ball around with Brooke and three others with disability.

But Brooke wanted more players, there wasn’t enough for a game. “So he strolled over to a third-team practice and said, ‘Come and play with us!” says Dr Mark Purvis, an IMAS Ambassador.